Casa Castillo

The Casa Castillo estate was bought in the 1940s by José Sánchez-Cerezo, and at first it was used to store esparto grass and aromatic herbs. It held an old winery, dating from 1870, left abandoned until 1991, when Nemesio Vicente, Sánchez-Cerezo's son-in-law, proposed recovering it. The first vintage was made that year, and the first wine, Casa Castillo Crianza 1991, reached the market in 1993.

Today it is run by the siblings Guillermina, Julia, Marisol and José María Vicente Sánchez-Cerezo. José María had begun studying Architecture and dropped it when the first family harvest came along, to dedicate himself to wine.

The estate covers about 400 hectares beneath the Sierra del Molar, at around 700 metres, with almond and olive trees among the vines. Viticulture is certified organic, dry-farmed and bush-trained, on soils of calcareous sand and limestone gravel. The main variety is Monastrell, with Garnacha and Syrah.

They work with native yeasts and part whole-cluster. El Molar is Garnacha from the slopes of the sierra, with 30% whole grapes in open underground lagares and 12 months in oak foudres. Las Gravas, from the stoniest soils of the estate, is 90% Monastrell and 10% Garnacha. The Vino de Finca, born in 2015, gathers the oldest vines, over 30 years old, with 12 months in neutral 500-litre demi-muids.

Pie Franco 2020 was in 2022 the first wine from the Jumilla DOP to receive 100 Parker points, from Luis Gutiérrez. It comes from ungrafted vines in the La Solana plot, planted by José María's grandfather.