one seriously huge vineyard

REGIONAL VINEYARD:

TOTAL VINEYARD

The region is approximately 450,000 hectares, of which the 2 principal players are La Mancha comprising of approximately 190,000 hectares of vineyard and Valdepenas reaching +30,000 hectares.

DEDICATED TO QUALITY

For such a huge surface area, yields are low due to the extremely dry climate. Recognition of their Quality is growing, in particular in Valdepenas.

NOTABLE CRU/ZONES:

LA MANCHA DO

ALBACETE
CIUDAD REAL
CUENCA
TOLEDO

VALDEPENAS

WINE STYLE/QUALITY:

% RED

25% Red – La Mancha
Mostly produced from Cencibal

88% Red – Valdepenas
Again Cencibal (Tempranillo) is the most important red variety

% WHITE

75%
Almost entirely producing from Airen !

% DOP / IGP

One of the oldest DO designated production zones in Spain, DO La Mancha has been active since 1932. Known for producing large volumes, individual hectare yields are infact low. So there’s Quality to be found. Be adventurous! Valdepenas in particular is worth a look with 95% of its wines produced according to DO quality standards.

CASTILLA LA MANCHA – Native Grapes

As always, we like to list those grapes which we understand are available as mono-varietals or which are locally important blenders. Naturally, as we make further discovery, we’ll update these lists.

NATIVE REDS

Forcollat Tinta

Cencibal

Or should that be Tempranillo? :)

NATIVE WHITES

Airen

La Mancha’s top white native variety, on its own, accounts for 25% of the planting of the entire Spanish vineyard. Think about that for a second.

Paradillo

OUR STATSOURCES

Wine Grapes – Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz
The World Atlas of Wine – Johnson & Robinson
Il Mondo del Vino – Associazione Italiana Sommelier, Edizione 2012
The Brothers Candrian, Aron & Martin @ Espavino – www.espavino.com

VINTAGE INFORMATION

All our data references are intended to be for indicative purposes only, due to the variability of available data from source to source and vintage to vintage. But we do try to keep ourselves ‘reasonably’ updated :)