Review: Private Wine Tour from Madrid to Colmenar de Oreja & Carabaña

Are you thinking about booking a wine tour from Madrid, but you would rather skip the big tour buses and the usual day trips to Toledo and Segovia?

Then this post is for you!

This private wine tour from Madrid to Colmenar de Oreja and Carabaña was one of the most unusual day trips I have had since we moved to Madrid.

Since the summer of 2025, I’ve lived in a small town just outside Madrid with my husband and dog. Before that, we lived in Barcelona and in Buenos Aires, where I visited my fair share of wineries in Argentina.

After moving to Madrid, I invited my mum and stepfather on a private wine tour from Madrid as a present for their 60th birthday. But it couldn’t just be any kind of wine tasting! It needed to be something a bit unusual and off-the-beaten-path…

On Viator, I ended up finding the perfect Private Wine Escape and Lunch by Madrid Wine Country.

In this review, I will take you through how this private wine tour from Madrid works, what we saw and tasted at every stop, and whether I think the tour is worth it.

Let’s get under the skin of wine tasting in Madrid!

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Review of Private Wine Escape and Lunch by Madrid Wine Country

The Short Version: Is This Private Wine Tour from Madrid Worth It?

Yes, absolutely!

This private wine tour from Madrid is the day trip I recommend to anyone travelling to Spain who has already seen Toledo and Segovia and wants to see the countryside of Madrid the way locals do.

The tour is run by Madrid Wine Country, and our guide and driver, Roy, picked us up at Plaza de Castilla at 9:30 am.

We spent the morning in Colmenar de Oreja, a small wine town around 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of Madrid.

In Colmenar de Oreja, we had a walk around the town and a wine tasting at the local winery Bodegas Peral.

The Bodegas Peral winery is one of the historic wineries in Madrid where the wine is still stored in huge clay jars in the underground cellar at Bodegas Peral.

In the afternoon, we tasted olive oil at Aceites Pósito in Villarejo de Salvanés and finished with paella for lunch at Finca Chavarri, a historic estate in Carabaña.

These three stops are places that most visitors to Madrid have never heard of, and you know that I’m always on the hunt for hidden gems and lesser-known places!

The private wine tour from Madrid was led by Roy, who was our driver, guide, translator, and, at the end of the day, our host for lunch. It was great to have somebody help with the translations, so I could just switch off my brain and not worry about that part!

The one thing you need to know before booking is that the owners at the winery and the olive oil cooperative mainly speak Spanish, so you rely on your guide to translate.

The Private Wine Tour from Madrid at a Glance

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Why I Booked a Private Wine Tour from Madrid

In September 2025, my mum and stepfather came to visit my husband and me for the first time since we had moved to Madrid.

For their 60th birthdays, we had given them a wine tasting as a present.

The only problem was that when we went to their birthday party back in February, I had no idea whether we would still be living in Barcelona or would have moved to Madrid by then!

On top of that, my mum works as a professional tour guide in Copenhagen, and that puts a bit of pressure on you when you give her a guided tour or a wine tasting as a present.

I could not just pick any wine tasting and think that it would do.

So, I went digging through Google, GetYourGuide, and Viator in search of something unique.

And I truly found it!

The tour I found was a private wine tour from Madrid that went completely off the beaten path, to small towns that most visitors never hear about.

Our guide and driver for the day was Roy, an American who had moved to Madrid from Hong Kong with his Spanish wife.

The Private Wine Tour from Madrid: My Honest Review

Now let’s break the review down a bit more and look at what to expect from the private wine tour from Madrid, stop by stop!

Meeting at Plaza de Castilla

We started the morning at 8:30 am by taking a Cabify from our home in Boadilla del Monte to Plaza de Castilla in the north of Madrid.

Cabify is a Spanish ride-hailing app that works much like Uber.

Roy had texted me the day before to meet him in front of the Canal de Isabel II park at Plaza de Castilla at 9:30 am.

The drive from Boadilla del Monte normally takes around 30 minutes, but to be on the safe side, we left a bit earlier.

And menos mal (thank goodness) that we did!

I had not accounted for the Madrid rush hour traffic, and clearly I live in my own working-from-home bubble!

Luckily, we arrived right on time and could jump into Roy’s car. With Roy, we headed straight back out of the city again. This time heading southeast.

Stop 1: Walking Tour of Colmenar de Oreja

The first stop on our private wine tour from Madrid was Colmenar de Oreja.

Colmenar de Oreja is a small town around 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of Madrid, with cobblestone streets and cute whitewashed old houses.

At the center of Colmenar de Oreja is the main square, Plaza Mayor, which is also the center of social life in the town.

We started our visit at the church, Iglesia de Santa María la Mayor, which is famous in the area for its huge mural of San Cristóbal (Saint Christopher).

The mural was painted in 1901 by Ulpiano Checa, a painter born in Colmenar de Oreja. The mural measures around 11 meters (36 ft) by 6 meters (20 ft).

Locals call the mural Cristobalón, roughly translating as “big Christopher”, and it shows the giant saint struggling to carry the Christ Child across a river.

The entrance to the church is €1, and the old man at the entrance enthusiastically turned on the lights on the altar for us when we arrived.

After the church, Roy showed us around Colmenar de Oreja while telling us the story of the town.

At the main square, the remains of a small stage and barricades were still standing around. Roy told us that the weekend before our visit, Colmenar de Oreja had celebrated its annual town festival, with bullfights and concerts.

We walked through the cobblestone streets to a viewpoint overlooking the surrounding fields and the town’s stone museum, Museo de la Piedra, translated as the Stone Museum…

… Because yes, Colmenar de Oreja has a stone museum! Who would have thought, right?

Lastly, we walked through Jardín del Zacatín, translating as the Zacatín Gardens, a small green oasis with water ponds and a long, tunnel-like gallery leading back to the main square.

In my opinion, Colmenar de Oreja is perfect if you are looking for a more local, off-the-beaten-path experience near Madrid.

The town is also only around 8 kilometers (5 miles), or about 10 minutes by car, from Chinchón, another small town southeast of Madrid that makes a great day trip from the city.

Then it was time for the wine tasting, which was the whole reason we came to Colmenar de Oreja in the first place!

Stop 2: Guided Tour and Wine Tasting at Bodegas Peral

The winery on the wine tour was Bodegas Peral, a family-run boutique winery that the Peral family has owned since 1953, although the winery itself dates back to 1872.

In Spanish, a bodega can mean both a winery and a wine cellar, and at Bodegas Peral it is both!

Bodegas Peral only produces a small amount of wine every year, and it is one of the few wineries in Colmenar de Oreja that are open to the public.

The winery is just a stone’s throw from the center of town (okay, everything seemed to be a stone’s throw away in Colmenar de Oreja, but you get the point!).

At Bodegas Peral, we were greeted by the owners, a father and his son.

The father, a man probably in his late seventies or early eighties, had worked at the winery his whole life, and he was the one who showed us around.

He only spoke Spanish, and he loved to joke about the difference between modern life and life when he was a young man.

Luckily, Roy came with us on the tour of the winery and translated from Spanish to English.

My brain simply would not have kept up with his distinct Spanish accent and all the technical wine terms, and then translating it all into Danish for my mum and stepfather at the same time!

The interesting thing about wine production in Madrid, and particularly in Colmenar de Oreja, is that the wine is traditionally stored underground in huge clay jars, called tinajas.

The underground cellars keep the temperature stable throughout the year, which is key in Madrid, where it gets cold in winter and very hot in summer.

Our tour started with us climbing down a small staircase cut into the ground, leading to the underground wine cellar.

The owner told us that when he was growing up, they used to carry the wine down those stairs in big bags on their backs, and after that kind of exercise there was no need to go to the gym after work!

As the owner showed us around in the underground wine cellar, he told us about the different techniques for making wine used in the area. Bodegas Peral is particularly well-known for using a special traditional winemaking technique from the Madrid area called sobremadre.

Sobremadre is a technique where the white wine ferments together with part of the grape skins instead of just the juice.

The massive clay tinajas lined up in the small underground wine cellar were a very unique and interesting experience.

The underground cellar was connected to more modern underground facilities, where the wine is prepared and bottled.

After the tour, we sat down on the patio of Bodegas Peral for the wine tasting, with some tapas of Spanish cheese and ham.

We tried three different wines from Bodegas Peral, including their white wine made with the special sobremadre method.

After the wine tasting, my stepfather and I went wine shopping in the small wine shop on site.

Stop 3: Olive Oil Tasting at Aceites Pósito

After a bit of wine shopping at Bodegas Peral, we jumped into Roy’s car and headed out on the country roads of rural Madrid.

The next stop was Aceites Pósito, a local olive oil cooperative in the small town of Villarejo de Salvanés.

Aceites Pósito is the oldest olive oil cooperative in the Madrid region, and around 300 local farmers take part in it.

The woman at the cooperative hardly spoke any English, and after the wine tasting, my head was definitely not up for a live Spanish-to-Danish translation, so Roy kindly stepped in to translate to English.

After a short introduction to how the cooperative works with the local farmers to collect the olives every year, we sat down for an olive oil tasting.

If you have never done an olive oil tasting before, it works much like a wine tasting, where you are served different olive oils in small cups.

You dip a little piece of bread in each olive oil and taste it, and it is surprising how different the flavors of the olive oils are!

The olive oils from Aceites Pósito have won several international awards.

By the entrance of the cooperative, there is a little shop where they sell their own products.

They even had a special olive oil called Arbequina, which is my husband’s favorite olive oil (yes, apparently you can have a favorite kind of olive oil!), so I bought a bottle for him.

Stop 4: Paella Lunch at Finca Chavarri in Carabaña

After the olive oil tasting, we headed for the last stop on the tour, which was lunch at Finca Chavarri.

Finca Chavarri is a country estate near the small village of Carabaña, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) southeast of Madrid.

Carabaña is famous in Spain for its mineral water, Aguas de Carabaña, which the businessman Ruperto Chávarri started selling in the late 19th century. The estate still carries his name.

The water was believed to have a healing effect, and it was very popular with Madrid’s high society. The popularity of the water led to a project to build a hotel and spa on the estate.

The property had been abandoned for several years when Roy and his wife bought the estate and the land, including the abandoned hotel and spa resort.

When we arrived at Finca Chavarri, the chef had already prepared a massive paella for us, which was so nice because by then we were pretty hungry!

To go with the paella, Roy had a red wine from another nearby winery ready for us.

The lunch was served in a beautiful old hall surrounded by a garden, with a small river running along the side.

The hall was still under renovation when we visited, but it was looking very promising.

Stop 5: Afternoon Walk to the Abandoned Spa Hotel, Hotel Rural de Carabaña

After lunch, Roy showed us around Finca Chavarri and asked if we wanted to see the abandoned hotel and spa buildings.

And of course we wanted that!

We walked along a small trail between the vineyards, and the beautiful autumn weather gave everything a golden light.

On the way, Roy told us how the area had been used by Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War because it is so close to Madrid.

We passed the abandoned hotel, a strange, ghost-like building standing there in the middle of nowhere in the countryside of Madrid.

Around the old hotel building, there were several smaller buildings that had been part of the spa area.

After we reached a little viewpoint overlooking the valley, we walked back to Finca Chavarri.

Back to Madrid

Back at Finca Chavarri, we jumped into Roy’s car, and he dropped us off near a metro stop in Madrid, so it was easy for us to get home.

It was Friday afternoon and rush hour on the Madrid metro, and I did regret a bit that I had bought quite so many bottles!

What to Keep in Mind Before Booking

Before you book this private wine tour from Madrid, there are a few practical things worth knowing.

The people you meet at Bodegas Peral and Aceites Pósito mainly speak Spanish. Roy translated everything for us, so it was not a problem at all. But the tastings themselves are not in English.

We met with Roy at Plaza de Castilla because we came from outside Madrid capital, but if you’re staying in a hotel in the center of Madrid, you can coordinate a nearby pick-up with Roy via Viator or WhatsApp after booking.

You walk on cobblestones in Colmenar de Oreja, climb down a narrow staircase into the cellar, and walk a country trail at Finca Chavarri (optional), so wear comfortable shoes.

And if you plan to buy wine and olive oil and take the metro home, bring an extra bag!

Finca Chavarri was still under renovation when we visited in September 2025, so the estate may look different by the time you visit.

Lastly, this is a private tour, so expect to pay more than for a big group wine tour from Madrid, but in return you get the whole day to yourselves.

Final Thoughts: Is This Private Wine Tour from Madrid Worth It?

A thousand times yes!

If you have already done the classic day trips from Madrid, this private wine tour from Madrid is a great way to see a completely different side of the region.

And the best part? My mum, the professional tour guide, also enjoyed it! (Mission completed on my side!)

The only downside is that you depend on your guide to translate at the winery and the olive oil cooperative, and it is a long day, so this is not the right tour if you want a quick half-day tasting close to the city.

If you’re looking for more untraditional things to do in Madrid without leaving the city, I would recommend that you check out this non-touristy tapas tour in Madrid!

But if you want to get under the skin of the countryside of Madrid, I cannot recommend it enough!

Have you been on a wine tour from Madrid, or are you planning one? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below!