Bernabeleva

The estate's name refers to a bear. Bernabeleva translates as «where the bear lives», from a pre-Roman root, and the house sits at the foot of the Cerro de Guisando — the hill of the Toros de Guisando, the Vettonian stone carvings — which is what the label shows. The property also lies on the historic boundary between two Roman provinces, Lusitania and Tarraconensis.

It was bought in 1923 by Dr Vicente Álvarez-Villamil, a Republican physician and author who had run the Hospital del Niño Jesús and was removed from his post after Franco's coup.

His great-grandsons, Juan Diez Bulnes and Santiago Matallana Bulnes, brought the vineyards back in the mid-2000s. Raúl Pérez did the initial consulting and Marc Isart then took over technical direction. There are 35 hectares of old vines, forty to eighty years old, in San Martín de Valdeiglesias, beside the Tórtolas stream: garnacha above all, with some albillo, moscatel de grano menudo and morenillo.

Carril del Rey comes from a single 4.2-hectare plot with vines around seventy-five years old, facing south and on granite. It is 100% garnacha.

The pre-fermentation maceration is twenty-four hours in a refrigerated lorry. It ferments with all the stems at low temperature, with forty-five days of maceration and gentle foot pigeage so as not to over-extract; native yeasts and little sulphur. It ages eleven months in 500-litre French oak barrels from various cooperages and five more in stainless steel so it settles on its own.