La Rioja's capital — Calle Laurel pintxos, Rioja Reserva, and no tourists
Logroño is the capital of La Rioja, Spain's premier wine region, and home to Calle Laurel — one of the best pintxos streets in Spain, where 15 bars each specialize in a single tapa (fried egg with anchovy at one, mushroom with chorizo at another) and the entire street fills with locals navigating from bar to bar. The city is largely undiscovered by international tourists despite being on the Camino de Santiago, which means the wine is cheap, the food is extraordinary, and you can actually get a table.
Logroño's strategic position on the Ebro River made it an important bridge-town on the Camino de Santiago from the 11th century, and the pilgrimage route still passes through the old city. The city became the capital of La Rioja in 1560 after the region unified under Castilian rule. The modern wine industry developed from the 1860s when Bordeaux négociants fled phylloxera into the Rioja and taught local producers to age wine in French oak — the technique that created the Rioja Reserva style.