Bodega & Viñedos Carres

The founder of Bodega Carres. He is a trained oenologist, schooled at the viticulture and oenology college in Requena, and founded the winery in 2008 in Casas de Eufemia, part of Requena in the D.O. Utiel-Requena, province of Valencia. He farms about 2.5 hectares of his own vines without chemicals, and work in the vineyard strictly follows the lunar calendar.

Because each wine comes from a single site and carries its name: Olivastro, Pico d'Agila, Malarado and Sabinilla, and José Luis also farms the Membrillera plot. The family has looked after these vineyards for generations. Depending on the plot, the vines are 25 to over 100 years old, trained as bush vines and never irrigated.

The native red grape of Utiel-Requena, a region with 2,500 years of winemaking. At Carres it makes up the Olivastro, pure Bobal from bush vines over 100 years old, and 60 percent of the Malarado Rosado. The Olivastro shows ripe red fruit such as raspberry and blackberry, with fine toasty notes from used French barriques.

A native white variety of the region. José Luis turns it into Sabinilla, from dry-farmed bush vines over 60 years old. The wine ferments spontaneously and spends three months on the fine lees in French barriques, with bâtonnage. It smells of peach and apricot, feels creamy and has only 12 percent alcohol. We have it from 2023 and 2024.

The Olivastro with grilled meat, game, braised dishes and aged hard cheese. The Pico d'Agila, pure Garnacha, with tapas, roast poultry and grilled vegetables, ideally lightly chilled at 14 to 16 °C. The Malarado suits Mediterranean starters, rice and grilled fish, the Sabinilla rice and pasta dishes, salads or an aperitif.

With as little intervention as possible. Picking is by hand, into 15-kilo crates. The grapes ferment spontaneously with wild yeasts, extraction is gentle, often in open fermenters. The wines then age in used wooden barrels or amphorae and are mostly bottled unfined and unfiltered, with little sulphur.

Yes, and one with structure. It is 60 percent Bobal from 50-year-old vines and 40 percent Garnacha from 25-year-old vines, both from the Malarado single site. The varieties ferment separately, and part of the Bobal ages in used barriques. In the glass a pale ruby pink, on the nose cherry, strawberry and rose petals.