The Ciudad Real area of La Mancha produces some interesting wines; in particular there are some really interesting Syrahs and Tempranillos.  Many times the wines are really good value though prices are rising.  Typically these wines are easy drinking, glugable reds….high alcohol but with gobs of sweet attractive fruit.  The best can have some complexity and subtlety, with better equilibrium between fruit, alcohol, oak, and acidity.  The worse are out of balance:  too much alcohol, often over-ripe fruit and lacking acidity….or even worse over sharp acidity from enthusiastic acid rectification.   The wines of La Mancha are hot weather wines, big wines that often resemble new world wines from similarly hot regions.  They are big wines, even the most complex and elegant wines, and many of my Spanish wine tasters find them overwhelming.  On the other hand, many of my foreign groups love them!  I tend to drink them chilled with barbecues in the summer….when I first came to Spain I drank them more frequently at home, but I got a bit burned out and lately I’ve used them solely in tasting.  Always a region to re-visit as change and improvement is constant. 

This winery, Finca La Estacada, has often impressed me with their extremely inexpensive, easy drinking wines. The winery is in La Mancha, but is not in the Denominacion de Origen (DO) area and therefore makes wine under Vino de La Tierra (VdT) de Castilla. The category of VdT is quite trendy at the moment and excellent wines are made under it, especially in Castilla Leon and Castilla La Mancha. Under European law, therefore Spanish law, Vdt is not considered quality wine, but rather falls under table wine. It is equivalent to Vin Pays under the French system. VdT guarantees origin but the wines are subject to much less restrictive regulations with regards to yields, aging, and grape variety etc. VdT is being used by wineries outside the officially designated DO areas, but also by winemakers who want more flexibility in making their wines.