Casa Castillo Pie Franco, Jumilla, Spain 2021 (from £157, bbr.com; laywheeler.com) To tell the story of one of Spain’s finest wines, you really need to go back to the disaster that enveloped European wine in the late-19th century. A plague swept through the continent’s vineyards in the form of a root-eating louse, a small yellow aphid-like insect known as phylloxera, which laid waste to around three-quarters of the European vineyard. An ingenious and industry-saving solution was found: grafting the European Vitis vinifera vines on to phylloxera-resistant American rootstocks. Almost all vines in Europe are now the results of this process, but a few pockets of very old vines planted on their own rootstocks survive, one of which is the vineyard in Jumilla in southeastern Spain, which produced Casa Castillo’s cult bottling – and its fans would argue it’s those eponymous pie franco (ungrafted) monastrell vines that are the key to the wine’s magical mix of airy grace and vivid red fruit.
Juan Gil Yellow Label Monastrell, Jumilla, Spain 2022 (from £10.99, allaboutwine.com; nywines.co.uk; butlers-winecellar.co.uk) Part of the reason for the survival of Casa Castillo’s vines is that they were planted, in the 1940s, in a sandy soil which phylloxera doesn’t much like. All the same, each year the louse takes away a little more of the vineyard and the dwindling production (along with the ecstatic critics’ scores it’s had in Spain and the USA) helps explain its astronomical price. Such prices are, luckily, unusual in Jumilla, however, although wines made from old vines, both pie franco and planted in the more conventional modern way, are far from uncommon. Casa Castillo has its own simpler, but still utterly captivating, succulently berried Casa Castillo Monastrell 2021 (from £19, shrinetothevine.co.uk; philglas-swiggot.com), while another old-vine specialist, Bodegas Juan Gil, uses the monastrell grapes to make a richer, more intense and robust style, softened by a touch of oak, in a range of wines that includes the great-value Yellow Label.
Wine Atlas Monastrell Rosado, Jumilla, Spain 2023 (£6.50, Asda) In a region with very low annual rainfall and increasingly infernal summers, winemakers have come to realise that the local monastrell vine, especially the old bush vines that are dotted around the rocky soils and “spaghetti-western” scenery, with its dramatic buttes and outcrops, are far better adapted to the conditions than varieties imported from elsewhere, and are certainly the key to the continued survival of wine production in the area. As well as full-flavoured plum-and-blackberry-filled bargain and barbecue-ready reds such as Carta Roja Pura Jumilla 2022 (£7, Morrisons), the vines can also be used to make an easy-drinking ripely fruited rosé, such as Asda’s 100% Monastrell Wine Atlas Rosado, and, in the hands of local specialists Bodegas Olivares, some magnificent sweet fortified reds. At around 16.5% abv, a wine such as Bodgeas Olivares Dulce Monastrell 2020 (£24.95, 50cl, vinissimus.co.uk) is lighter than port, and has a wonderfully distinctive mix of anchovy, olive, chocolate, aniseed and luscious sweet blackberries that is significantly better in the glass than it looks on paper.
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