Bobal, the grape with designation of origin in the Utiel-Requena wine.

The highest gastronomic seal of quality is the designation of origin, and viticulture was not going to be an exception. In the Valencian Community, the bobal grape of the Utiel-Requena wine takes this honor with 67% of the production with 21876 hectares.

Native to Requena-Utiel, this grape has a great presence in the southeast of the peninsula. Specifically in the regions of Valencia, Albacete and Cuenca. This Mediterranean grape variety comes from a strain that is highly resistant to adverse weather conditions, especially frost and drought; as well as the plague of powdery mildew. During the spring cold, the plant protects itself, causing its sprouting to be late. In this way, it prevents a greater loss of acids, especially tartaric acid, which acts as a natural preservative that corrects the acidity of the wine.

Visually, the Bobal grape is medium and round, an attractive dark blue color loaded with juice. With a large and compact cluster, its skin is hard and thick, loaded with tannin, anthocyanins and an acceptable level of fixed acidity. Together with its fresh aroma, it is excellent for making red and aged wines. Although it also produces rosé wines of an attractive pink with aromas of red fruits.

The set of these characteristics makes the bobal grape produce a wine of intense red color, fruity and acid with a low alcohol level. Undoubtedly, the taste is a pure reflection of the work involved. Do you want to know our red wines with bobal?

Wineries with wine from Utiel-Requena: Sentencia and Sexto Elemento.

The Bodegas y Viñedos Sentencia is a Requena winery that cultivates in a drying area and with totally ecological methods. Its bobal vineyards are its oldest plots, 80 years old, and the Sentencia production is a bobal red with a touch of garnacha, fermenting in stainless steel, then aged for a year in French barrels. You can enjoy the last units of its production from 2014 and 2017. Don’t worry, we have enough bottles of the 2015, 2016 and 2018 harvest.

This old family winery closed with the arrival of the Cooperatives in the 60s and returned to its splendor with Sentencia. It is located in a cellar-garage with fully restored mud and cement presses. Its walls provide a level of humidity and temperature conducive to fermentation in French barrels, while packaging and bottling takes place in a separate room with stainless steel tanks.

Vinos Sexto Elemento began its project at the beginning of the century in Venta del Moro, in the Requena-Utiel region, becoming a benchmark for natural wines in the area. He began his winemaking work with 6º Elemento, made with Bobal grapes from old vines planted on clay soil, and fermented in French oak barrels for 12 months, without any chemical additives, producing a classic and robust red wine. In addition to this flagship wine of the winery, for lovers of bobal we recommend trying the other red wines from the winery: David y Goliath or Respeto.

This winery has a totally family history. Although the cultivation of the vine has been a generational tradition, the family’s great-grandfather was the last to make a wine… until the year 2000.

The López-Díaz family follows in the footsteps of the passion for the trade and the traditional elaboration where their ancestor left it, without conflicting with modern advances that facilitate the entire process, but without conflicting with naturalness. Thanks to this, they offer you unique wines of great flavor.