Only Red Wines

From land Castilla-La Mancha, in the so-called Manchuela Conquense, land of great appellations of origin and the Ribera del Jucar, the Manchuela or own La Mancha, we have to spend a day at the area around Motilla del Palancar (Cuenca). In particular the beginning of our trip focused on the Graja de Iniesta, a small town about halfway between Madrid and Valencia, near of the A-3 road. 

The reason for this visit was to discover the hidden wine cellar Prior de Castilla, a wine we've tasted in a restaurant whose owner has called the winery and special relationship with its partners, the cooperative is called Altaman, and is about 800 meters . to the center of Graja de Iniesta. 

The winery is a facility of less than 5 years, fully mechanized, with a nave with a capacity of about 2 million liters, with stainless steel tanks enclosed within a well insulated warehouse, his laboratory, his barrel room, its bottling ... all with excellent levels of quality and meeting strict health regulations that make only 2 people to manage the facility.
The winery produces red and rosé wines from native varieties such as the Bobal and Cencibel and foreign, but well adapted, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Monastrell, Syrah and others. His great commitment to making wines from grapes of organic origin and excellent facilities have made one of their organic wines, Prior de Castilla 2006 Ecologico, has achieved a silver medal at the Mundus Vini BioFach in Germany. 

Our visit began with a visit to the grape grape reception, the stemmer, the press and fermentation tanks, all on a new and very spacious area, then spend the barrel room, where the Prior de Castilla aging, a small room with about 25 barrels of French and American brothels type, room that can be stored perfectly hundreds of boots and I hope they leave some excellent wines in a future. 

We visited other facilities, but what I liked most was to conduct a live tasting straight from the tanks that store the wines ready for bottling. The first one I tried, is a rosé in preparation, which was still in pre-bottling process and which had a striking strawberry flavor in the mouth, to be 3 º C did not show any characteristic feature. 

The good were the organic Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 and 2009, different, the first with a tremendous density in the mouth with sweet tannins, fruit mother's own upbringing and that 3 to 6 months should be delicious in one years , the second in 2009 more fruity, a little vegetable, but different aromas and flavors. I tried also a very fruity Tempranillo but less aromatic and especially less dense. For dense, glyceric and greedy, an organic Syrah, a wine bottle that tastes good to wake up with game and lamb meal, a mixture of ripe red fruits and roasted roasted mouth was that long drink. 

One day in very cold and warm visit with Pepe gave us a wonderful person and a partner, we left a good taste in your mouth.

This is a low-priced red wine (less than 2 euros) made with Tempranillo, Valencian Wines Cooperative Sinarcas La Protectora. Sinarcas is a municipality located approximately 100 km from the city of Valencia (Spain), belonging to the county Requena-Utiel and about 900 meters high. on sea level.

This town is accessed via the N-330 road, from Madrid or Valencia from A-3 road and from the same N-330 road from Teruel, Alicante, Albacete and Cuenca. Her extension is largely made up of vineyards and cereal crops, the first being that more hectares occupied and have realized that wines like this comment.

About 10 years ago I had the opportunity to taste a wine, Cerro Carpio, bought from the same winery and it was just bottled, it was a 6-month aging in oak, Tempranillo and still oozing think the purple, tannic and some vegetal character on the palate, after 2 years in my house (not for wine storage in summer) changed the tone to a more orange color, velvety in the mouth and is delicious for the occasion.

   

Last week we bought a selection of reds, Arcaz reserve aged and Terra Ibera young wine, which the latter have opened a bottle and I enjoyed a young wine with a moderate degree alcohol, 12.5 º, a bright ruby color and very clean. On the nose full of red fruit, floral and fresh. Already in the mouth has good acidity, a balance between acid and sweet aftertaste with a wine that evokes its roots. 

 

A Tempranillo 100% wine from the D.O. Utiel-Requena to take every day and accompany this cold winter, ideal to take along a good cheese and accompanied by some dry rice and pork sausage or a good stew with beans or chikpeas .

Are yet to try the red Arcaz aged with Tempranillo and Bobal, the jewel of the land in the region Utiel-Requena and I think we can surprise addition to the prices of these two do not reach the 4 euros per bottle.