The Culinary Institute of America

On every Rioja wine label, there are clues to what's inside. Watch this video to learn how to read a Rioja wine label.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

What is old-style Rioja? What is modern Rioja? The old labels may no longer apply.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

On every Rioja wine label, there are clues to what's inside. Watch this video to learn how to read a Rioja wine label.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

Some of the world's leading modernist architects have been leaving their stamp on Rioja.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

Every year, more than 12,000 wine lovers come to the tiny village of Badarán to visit the bodega of David Moreno. The grandson of a vintner, Moreno left Rioja as a young man, when his prospects looked bleak, but a fascination with wine pulled him back.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

Every year, more than 12,000 wine lovers come to the tiny village of Badarán to visit the bodega of David Moreno. The grandson of a vintner, Moreno left Rioja as a young man, when his prospects looked bleak, but a fascination with wine pulled him back.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

Is it any wonder that families remain in this alluring place for centuries, passing vineyards and bodegas down through generations? For the American sommeliers visiting Rioja, the trip offered the chance to meet some of the region’s leading wine families, people passionate about carrying on the work of their fathers and grandfathers and fiercely proud of their heritage.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

Rioja's magnificent red wines tend to overshadow its whites, but the region's white wines appeal to many, especially sommeliers and collectors who admire the wines' astonishing ability to age. Made largely from the Viura grape, Rioja whites from traditional producers such as Lopez de Heredia receive oak aging and can improve in the bottle for 15 to 20 years. Other producers, such as Marques de Caceres, focus on preserving the grape's lively aromas and freshness through stainless steel fermentation.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

Peruvian by birth, the first Marqués de Murrieta spent three years studying winemaking in Bordeaux in the late 1840s and absorbed many French techniques before returning to Rioja to launch his own enterprise in 1852. His was the first Rioja bodega to age wine in oak barrels, a practice considered extravagant at the time. Today, his descendants operate Marqués de Murrieta with progressive ideas but with pride in the history on view in its cellar.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.

The two sisters who run Lopez de Heredia are the fourth generation to manage this distinguished bodega, one of the most proudly traditional wineries in Rioja. Change happens slowly here; the sisters’ respect for their family’s past is profound. Visiting the Lopez de Heredia cellars and drinking a bottle of 40-year-old Viña Tondonia, the flagship wine, a visitor can almost sense the watchful presence of past generations.

For more information about this series, please visit www.ciaprochef.com/rioja.