San Francisco in California to Napa, and San Sebastian in Spain to Rioja
By Anton Inarra.
World famous Napa sign about two hours away from San Francisco.
San Francisco in California and San Sebastian in the Basque Country of Spain have a lot of things in common: they both are cities by a bay, both really beautiful, and both roughly two hours away from amazing wine regions! In the case of San Francisco two hours away from Napa, and in the case of San Sebastian two hours away from Rioja!
A trip to Napa from San Francisco is nice and easy with a stop in the middle in the beautiful and Sonoma, only about one and a half hours from the city. Equally, in the case of San Sebastian we find the same thing, only an hour and a half away from San Sebastian we enter the Rioja wine region from its northwester side to one of the best places to visit in Rioja. the Station District of Haro, with word wide known wineries such as Cvne, Muga, or Lopez de Haro. And with another easy 20 minutes drive through the heart of the wine country crossing fields of vineyards, to arrive to jewels such as Marques de Riscal or Ysios.
Marques de Riscal winery, best winery in the world 2025.
North Coast Tours is a travel agency specialized in wine country tours. They spent 10 years in San Francisco running tours to Sonoma and Napa, and creating unforgettable memories for thousands of happy customers over the years. In 2022 they went back to San Sebastian, the city of origin of Anton (one of the founders of NCT), to do the same from San Sebastian to Rioja. Since then it has been almost four amazing years where they applied all they learnt over the years in America. This agency is ideal for any American person visiting San Sebastian because how well they understand the American culture.
Anton to the right with a group of happy wine lovers.
For 2025 Rioja got two of the best wineries in the world: Marques De Riscal being the first one in the list and Ysios the forth one. North Coast Tours runs visits to both wineries in a regular basis. They run semi private tours with a maximum of eight people in the vehicle, so customers can make new friends in a small setting. Alternatively, they also offer private tours which are fully customizable. A good alternative is to go visit the Station District of Haro first, visiting some of the wineries in that region such as Muga or Cvne, to continue after deep inside Rioja to visit Riscal and Ysios.
You can contact North Coast Tours on their website at northcoastours.com
