THEY call it “The Thing”. Others say that it looks like four tin cans gone
wrong. Some are convinced it still isn’t finished. But whatever the locals
think about the architecture, the Marqués de Riscal hotel in Elciego,
northern Spain, designed by Frank Gehry, is the biggest sensation on the
skyline since medieval times.
Its stainless steel and pink titanium twisted roof shines, UFO-style, from a
landscape of gentle rolling hills covered in vineyards, terracotta cottages
and churches.
The village of Elciego (population 1,000) is having to adjust quickly to a
tourism boom created by the new hotel set in the winery of Marqués de
Riscal. Thousands of gawping tourists pour out of coaches and cars to see
this wondrous building. Gabbling in a dozen tongues, they stand awestruck
amid a whirr of digital cameras.
They tramp around the winery inspecting the cellars (with 3.8 million bottles)
and watch men in blue boiler suits hosing down metal wine vats the size of
houses. Technicians sit in a Nasa-style control centre monitoring
temperatures and conditions. You can see every wine produced here since
1858, before finishing off a tour with a wine-tasting of 2002 Marqués de
Riscal Reserva. The whole complex is called La Ciudad de Vino (the City of
Wine), a kind of wine theme park for grown-ups.
All of this has a goldfish-bowl effect on guests staying in the hotel that
sits at the heart of this £57 million complex. It opened to the public on
October 10 with 43 rooms and is booked solid at weekends for months, despite
the eye- watering room rates that range from £400 to £900 a night. The first
question on arrival is a stern: “Are you a guest here?” Even if you’re not
and have managed to slip in, you won’t get far. Lifts and doors are
activated by swipe-card room keys.
Persuading Frank Gehry, the renowned Canadian architect who designed the
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, to build in the Rioja Alavesa area of the
Basque country was a coup.
The Guggenheim transformed industrial Bilbao into a magnet for weekend breaks
overnight. After the museum was built, the owners of Marqués de Riscal
invited Gehry to Rioja Alavesa to ask him to sprinkle a little of his design
gold dust on their area. He liked what he saw, and a bottle of wine from
1929, the year he was born, sealed the deal. The timing of the hotel’s
opening could not have been better. Eta, the Basque separatist group,
announced a “ permanent” ceasefire earlier this year after 40 years of
terrorism that had blighted the area’s image as a tourist destination.
The main building of the hotel houses the reception, bar, restaurant and a
magnificent penthouse lounge, with balconies perched between the titanium
roof.
The bedrooms aren’t in the main scrunched-up metal ball, but in a more
conventional block across a bridge. The rooms have high ceilings and large
beds with masses of soft white downy layers. There are enormous windows,
wooden floors and simple splashes of colour, such as one strategically
placed red leather chair.
The marble bathrooms are like cathedrals, the washbasins like altars of metal,
glass and mirrors. There are separate showers and bathtubs, loos and huge
closets with gliding doors. Though grand, somehow the design doesn’t feel as
if it is trying very hard.
Gehry has even designed the paper lampshades, which look as if someone has
stamped on them in a fit of rage and put them back on the light fitting.
Beneath the hotel rooms is a Caudalie Vinothérapie Spa; its treatments are all
based on wine. So, in the interests of research, I lay in a wine vat full of
anti-ageing wine extracts. There is also an indoor infinity pool, but it
doesn’t open till 10am so being an early-morning swimmer and unable to
persuade them to open earlier, I can’t tell you much about it.
The hotel is cool, but not intimidating. This piece of architecture will be a
landmark in 100 years’ time — staying here is the equivalent of spending a
night in an iconic building of a particular era, such as the Eiffel Tower or
the Taj Mahal. Most design hotels are “here today, gone tomorrow” —
especially the ones where you can’t find the light switches and the
unusually shaped beds are a penance to sleep in.
The Marqués de Riscal is enormously expensive for a hotel in the middle of
nowhere that few had heard about until a month ago, but so far seems to
justify its £400-plus price tag. I wish I could say the same for the food.
The hotel has a Michelin-starred “chef-adviser”, Francis Paniego, who
specialises in Basque-Riojan cuisine. The trouble with chef- advisers is
they aren’t based on the premises, so what came out of that kitchen in the
48 hours I stayed there was not, in my opinion, of Michelin-star quality. My
companion’s meal was hake in batter. The fish was raw in the middle and the
outside was soggy. The service was glacially slow and the restaurant had the
atmosphere of a hospital waiting room.
My turbot with pak choi was bland. The chocolate dessert was too heavily
sugared. Scrambled egg at breakfast was greasy and not scrambled (it was
full of separate whites and yellows) and the room- service salad came with
half an avocado that was rock hard. If you were thinking “it’s too expensive
to stay there, let’s just go for dinner instead”, I would advise you not to
bother.
In fact, one of the best moments of my two days was strolling around nearby
Laguardia. This medieval village is built on a labyrinth of wine cellars.
For a couple of euros you can enjoy a few glasses of vino with hot
toasted bread smeared with fruity olive oil seasoned with rock salt and
rosemary.
If you can’t afford Gehry’s hotel, stay in the magical village of Laguardia
for about 40 euros (£27) a night, and tour the underground caverns in the
early evening. Enjoy some local plonk and chorizo, and waddle back to
your pensión. Then get up early and go for a gawp and a gargle
down the road.
Need to know
Hotel Marqués de Riscal, 1 Calle Torrea, Elciego 01340, Spain (00 34 945
180880, www.luxurycollection.com/marquesderiscal).
Getting there: Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies to Vitoria-Gasteiz, an hour’s
drive
from the hotel. EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) and BA (www.ba.com) fly to Bilbao,
two hours’ drive away.
Tourist information: www.basquecountrytourism.net.
Go green: The Travel Foundation has a downloadable Insider Guide leaflet to
travelling responsibly in Spain. See www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk.
