Castaño (D.O. Yecla) enters Alicante and Jumilla

By Emilio Saez van Eerd

Castaño probably is the first winery that has given monastrell its deserved place in the wine world as a quality wine. They pionered in the 80´s of the past century, applying new vinification techniques in Yecla, until then a region known as a bulk wine area only. The family has a clear personal challenge: “to make monastrell one of the favourite wines in Spain and on the international market”. They started to upgrade monastell through consistency, hard work, experimentation and the peruit of quality. As they struggled to compete with the better known Spanish wines, Castaño managed to introduce the monastrell into the export markets as a varietal wine and as a basis for blended wines. Step by step their monastrell broke with the heavy oxidative bulk image, showing the world its potential of a fruity, structured and easy to drink red wine with a clear own personality. At the same time the prices are very competitive.

Castaño kept improving the quality of their wines and invested heavily in export and sales. The export department created a strong relationship with an increasing network of fine wine distributors. These clients were infected by the monastrell virus that Castaño spreaded around. At that time it took a lot of courage for the importers and resellers as well to promote Yecla´s monastrell in stead of Rioja or Ribera del Duero. Especially in Europe the image of East Spain as a bulk wine region still dominated the minds of the wine buyers. Therefore Castaño needed the right people to defend their wines. Wines like Pozuelo, Dominio Espinal, Castaño Colección, and Hécula are well positioned in the market. Outside of Europe, where nobody knew about the bulk wine history, it was a lot easier to introduce the new style Mediteranean wine as a different Spanish wine. Especially when Robert Parker started to recommend several of Castaño´s wines as best buys, like the Castaño 2002 Monastrell, for 90 points for 7 euro. Loads of fruit, structure and soft tannins became a synonime for monastrell wines from Yecla.

Sierra Salinas D.O. Alicante

Castaño understands the necessity to improve the quality continuously. No other company in the region has done that much for monastrell as the Castaño family. Although the winery has no foreign investors, it approved a joint venture with the Suisse family Niehus to create a wine called Mira, made of old monastrell vineyards in the valley of Sierra Salinas. The project started in 2000. The aim was to make a high quality wine with great potential for the international market. The synergy of the Castaño family and the two brothers Philippe and Alain, both with a broad experience in wine making and distribution of wines from all over the world, resulted in a big export succes for Mira. As the project became more serious, a new winery was built in the same valley.

The bodega is named after the mountain Sierra de Salinas that seperates D.O. Yecla´s border from the D.O. of Alicante. Oficially the area where Bodegas Sierra Salinas is located is D.O. Alicante, although the town of Yecla in the province of Murcia is the nearest town.
The Sierra Salinas estate lies at 600 to 700 meters above sea level, and has 35 hectares of vineyard and 80 hectares of almond and olive trees. The natural scenery is unique. I fact the whole bodega is built in such a way that you can enjoy the vineyards, olive and almond trees that surround the winery. The architect has intergrated glass walls and big terrasses in the modern and hyperfunctional winery. Seen from the road the winery lies several meters higher. This gives it even more importance than it already has.

The local architect Jose Maria Abellán based his construction on two concepts. Termical isolation and gravity, avoiding the pumping around of the wines in the several phases of the wine making process. The barrels are kept under the ground, protected from the huge differenes in temperature. The production zone of the winery is faced north to avoid high temperatures as much as possible. The second objective is the use of gravity. The winery is built on three levels. The first level is the vinification level. The whole winery has 14 stainless steel deposits of 80 hectoliters, equiped with German pigeage techniques for a careful maceration. The second level is used for pressing the wine, and the third and lowest level under the ground is used for ageing and bottling. All the wines from this winery undergo an ageing in Frecnh oak barrels. 50% new and 50% one year old. The wine spends 20 months in oak before the are bottles at the same level.

As Ramon Castaño shows us around in the winery he explains that he is extremely proud to have these vineyards on this spot. It was not a goal on itself to produce an Alicante wine. Can you see the path coming down from the hill just a few meters away from the winery, that´s the path that seperates the Valencian comunity from the Murcian”. But for Castaño the choice to make Sierra Salinas a Alicante wine, is a strategical decission. In that way Sierra Salinas will not compete directly with the wines from Yecla. The microclimate here is unique. Thanks to the mountains the vineyards are protected ftom the extreme climate conditions. Although the winery is already producing wine, several parts of the winery are still under construction. 90% of all monastrell in the area are old vines.

In the cellar of the winery we taste the samples of wines that in the future will compose the 2005 Sierra Salinas. The 100% garnacha tintorera is loaded with fruit. The aok is completely integrated with the wine. A very friendly sample, almost a complete wine already. The 100% cabernet sauvignon of 5 year old vines is spicy in the nose. The young tannins are still very present but not unpleasant. Elegant cabernet style. We also taste the already bottled Mira 2003, a fruity nose with some oak. The explosive taste is impressive, fruity and well structured, round tannins and 20 months of perfectly integrated oak. Casa Cisca 2004 is a 100% monastrell, thick colour, ripened fruit, balsamic, round and powerful. The acidity is elegant. This wine still requieres a few years before reaching its peak.

At this moment the winery has 30 hectares of monastrell, 5,5, hectares of cabernet sauvignon, garnacha tintorera and petit verdot. Especially the garnacha tintorera has been rediscovered in the region of Almansa as agrape with a huge potential for blending, giving the wines not only colour but also structure. Petit verdot has shown its potential to create wines with great aromas and softness on the palate. The first wines that came from the vineyards that belong to the winery of Siera Salinas were bottles under the D.O. of Yecla. These wines can be found on the market under the names Mira Salinas 2000, 2001 or 2002. A special approval was necessary to get the wine from D.O. Alicante to become a D.O. Yecla. The wines from 2003 are the first to enter the market with the D.O. Alicante seal and are called Mira Salinas (20 months aok ageing) and Casa Salinas (8 months oak ageing).

Alicante is happy with the arrival of the Castaños to the region. Yecla showed a huge growth in sales of bottled D.O. quality wines since Castaño started there bottling activities in Yecla. Although Alicante has some great wineries like Enrique Mendoza, Poveda and several other smaller ones, Castaño will contribute without any doubt a lot to the prestige of Alicante as quality wine producing area of mainly monastrell.

Altos del Cuadrado D.O. Jumilla

Another completely new project Castaño is intoducing is the Altos del Cuadrado, a Jumilla wine. After the Alicante project became a fact, Castaño did not wait for another partner to invite them to participate in a joint venture. Castaño decided to buy two vineyards in Jumilla with a total of more than 8 hectares. The old vines, most of them planted in 1955 and some in 1968, provide grapes with great potential to make big wines. Under the control of the technical team of Castaño the grapes undergo their vinification in a Jumilla based winery. The wine is bottled under the name of Bodegas y Viñedos del Mediterraneo S.L., a comercial name that Castaño uses to avoid confusion among distributors ans consumers.

In a similar way as the mira project but on a smaller scale, several other importers have started their projects with Castaño. The Dutch importer Marco Meeuwsen, on photo right together with Ramon Castaño (left) and Pedro Albaladejo (middle), has created his own wine after 7 years of colaboration with Castaño. His project is called Mmmmm! with D.O. Yecla. And some international markets, other than the Dutch already showed their interest in the red, rosé and white Mmmmm! With Eric Solomon, Castaño has created Solonera, and in Germany and Switzerland together with Mövenpick, Castaño has introduced Seleccion Especial. But also within Spain the top wine specialist in Barcelona Quim Vila decided to create a own wine called Viña al lado de la casa, literally translated as "the vineyard alongside the house".

I have no doubt that these new projects will have the same potential as the classical Castaño wines from Yecla. The question is: with whom and where will the Castaño family stop creating more interesting wines? If their ambition is to make wine in all the monastrell areas then Bullas, Valencia, Almansa, several other areas of Spain and of course South of France and Australia could expect some day the arrival of Castaño.
For more information go to Bodegas Castaño on the www.worldwinedatabase.com and Bodegas Sierra Salinas on the www.worldwinedatabase.com

and click further to the corresponding websites which are extremely complete and useful.