At 08.30 on day one 38 members met together in the Jávea bus station to head off on our latest adventure. We were joined en route by Paul & Carolynn Smithard for the first day, on their way to the UK.
En route to Manchuela we visited a bodega in Utiel-Requena – Pago Chozas Carrascal. In 1990 the Lopez-Peidro family decided to undertake a really ambitious and exciting project: making quality wines from a single and unique terroir. By 2012 they had achieved their aim, being awarded the category of a Pago. There are currently just 17 “Pago” bodegas in Spain, 3 of which are in the DO Utiel Requena. The Pago concept represents an entirely different method of classifying quality. Pago means vineyard, so the simple explanation of what constitutes a DO Pago is that it is a single estate wine, from an estate that is perceived to be one of the great estates in Spain. The wine from a DO Pago must be wholly created and bottled within that domain.
The estate is located in San Antonio de Requena halfway between the towns of Requena and Utiel in the province of Valencia. The vineyard is situated on top of a small hill between 750 and 850 meters above the Mediterranean Sea. Surprisingly being so close to the sea (60 km), the characteristic climate is clearly continental. The estate grows eleven varieties of grape and has pioneered the growing of vines on trellises. Grapes are harvested in the early morning and the harvest for this year was completed just a few days previously. Each grape variety is fermented individually. The bodega has 40 hectares of vines and 30 of olives. They have 11 concrete and 14 stainless steel tanks; including egg shaped concrete tanks that help ensure greater direct contact between the all important skins and the juice. We were escorted and informed by Maria José and her mother (also Maria), who is a doctor of chemistry, working with the Polytechnic University of Valencia as the bodega is in permanent research and trying to improve every year looking for an increasingly higher quality for their wines. We saw evidence of investment, scientific expertise and passion. 
We tasted 4 of their delightful wines, named for the number of grape varieties in each:
Las Tres 2014 Blanco 13€
Las Cuatro 2014 Rosado 11€
Las Ocho 2012 Tinto 15€
El Cabernet Franc 2013 Tinto 29 (a limited production of 4,000 hand signed bottles)
We continued our journey, stopping for lunch at the Restaurante Paris, to soak up a little of the first samples and then on to our destination wine region.
DO MANCHUELA
Framed between the valleys of the Júcar and Cabriel rivers, to the east of Castilla la Mancha, the DO of Manchuela is favoured by very specific soil and climate conditions. Clay soils with limestone base and the sediments of both rivers collect and hold rainwater that falls when the grapes have not yet grown. The low humidity, the almost total absence of rain between May and September and the many hours of sunshine during the ripening season make the disease risk negligible. The vineyards, cultivated in an area of approximately 72,000 hectares are located at an altitude of between 600 and 1,100 meters above sea level in a continental climate, influenced by the humid winds of the Levante, High daytime temperatures produced by the west wind and in the night fresh Mediterranean Solana breezes favour slow maturation. This provides the perfect climate for the Bobal grape, native to this DO and generally cultivated in the traditional “en vaso” (bush vine) form although there is a gradual move to modern trellis systems.
It was originally part of a much larger DO (La Mancha) and became a separate DO in 2000. The farmers could not compete with the low prices of wines from La Mancha, and hence, even today, much of the production is shipped to other regions to boost the wines produced there – Macabeo to major Cava producers, Bobal to Rioja, Portugal and France for blending into quality labelled wines, etc.
In the afternoon we visited the Bodegas SAAC. This is a co-operative (San Antonio Abad Cooperativa) located in Villamalea. It was founded in 1947 has 1,350 members and produces 25 million litres of wine of which, 750,000 litres is bottled (1 million bottles). Their vineyards total over 4,500 hectares situated 720 metres above sea level and they enjoy a continental climate with Mediterranean influences, meaning hard winters and hot summers. This gives ideal conditions in which the native grape variety, Bobal, thrives in conjunction with Tempranillo, Shiraz and Macabeo. They also grow some Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo. The wines we tasted were:
Altos del Cabriel Blanco Macabeo 2014 
1.75€
Altos del Cabriel Rosado Bobal 2014 1.75€
Altos del Cabriel Tinto Tempranillo 2014 1.75€
Marqués de Alarcón Blanco Macabeo-Verdejo 2104 1.75€ (which we discovered is a Marks & Spencer own label wine, selling currently – on special offer for £8 a bottle!)
Viñamalea Tinto Crianza Tempranillo-Syrah 2008 2.50€
Gredas Viejas Tinto Roble Syrah 2009 3.00€
Despite the cheap prices all the wines score in the high 80s in the Guía Peñín and several of the wines are classed as exceptional value for money.
That night we stayed in the very comfortable Hotel Palacio Villa de Alarcon, where we enjoyed a reception, followed by the excellent group dinner in the Hotel. A few diehards decided to test the hotel’s drinks service, before finally resting their heads, ready for the busy second day.
After breakfast on the Wednesday we enjoyed the Guided Tour of Alarcon visiting two of the villages remaining four churches. These were all built at a time when the population was 3,500, whereas today it is 120. The church of Santa Maria was awe inspiring with its magnificent door and golden altar and the interior walls of second church were completely covered in allegorical frescos, which took the painter, Jesus Mateo, eight years to complete. Only the guide’s explanation of what they were prevented us from being entirely bewildered.
After the visits we set of for the Bodega Iniesta. The owner of this bodega is none other than Andrés Iniesta the Captain of FC Barcelona and Spanish International footballer. The reception rooms of the bodega are covered with his photos and mementos. Since he started promoting Manchuela wines sales have increased by 200%. This is one of the 3 highest tech wineries in Castilla La Mancha – one of the top 15 in Spain.
Bodega Iniesta is located in the heart of La Manchuela, in Fuentealbilla, province of Albacete. There are currently over 60 hectares of vines: Macabeo, Bobal, Graciano, etc., and international varieties: Chardonnay, Petit Verdot, Sauvignon Blanc, located alongside the wine cellar equipped with the latest technology for wine production. A further 30 hectares is in olive production, 30 hectares of almonds plus large swathes of arable land.
The bodega was created in the 1990’s when José Antonio Iniesta started this project with a plantation of 10 hectares of vineyards. After several years of work, planting different varieties he increased the total farming area to the current 120 hectares. At the beginning of the 2000’s, an idea began to take shape to build his own wine cellar in order to produce his own wines from his own vineyards. This dream became a reality in 2010, when the construction of the wine cellar was complete. That same year, the first wines were produced. Here we tasted the following super wines:
Finca El Carril Blanco Macabeo 2014 5.75€ 
Carazón Loco 2014 Rosado (Bobal) 4.00€
Carazón Loco 2014 Tinto 4.80€
Finca el Carril Hechicero 2011 Tinto 8.65€
We lunched at the bodega, where Hugh Epsom offered our thanks to the wine team and our genial driver – and presented each with gifts of wine from this bodega. We then headed home, to arrive back in Javea at around 8pm. Then came the now familiar job of emptying the coach’s hold of the €4,200 of wine purchased by the group, to ensure that we all took home with us everything that we had purchased – and nothing more!!!
Thank you to Margaret, Gaby, Sandy and Tim for yet another most enjoyable trip.
Text by Andrew Johnson, Photos by Joan Easter and Gaby Ferenczy October 2015