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Outside the region’s three main Denominaciones de Origen (Alicante, Utiel-Requena and Valencia) there is another area that has a long history of winemaking — Castellón. This tradition was all but obliterated in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the process of recovery is well under way. Vins de la Terra de Castelló (VdeTC) was established in 2005 as an Indicación Geográfica Protegida. “Vinos de la Tierra” is a strange category. In the Comunitat Valenciana it is a status adhered to by one of the region’s grandest bodegas, Bodega Mustiguillo, which is in Utiel, but has rather magnificently opted to remain outside DO Utiel-Requena as the sole bodega in its own Vino de la Tierra El Terrerazo. Mostly, Vinos de la Tierra status is a rung below Denominación de Origen, along the lines of France’s “Vins de Pays”.
Castellón is a bit of a Cinderella in Valencian wine terms, with its three larger DO sisters, but every year Guzmán Orero, secretary of VdeTC and the man behind the wines of Masía de la Hoya, is a buzzing bundle of enthusiasm at the VdeTC stand at the Mostra de Vins, Caves, Licors i Aliments Tradicionals that takes place in the old Turia river each spring. So, it was a particular pleasure to be invited by Enocata.com to attend a wine event set in the imposing Antiguo Casino (built in 1814) of Castellón — apparently the first official wine tasting event open to the public to be held in the town. This was organized by the Asociación de Sumilleres de Castellón y Provincia (ASUCAP), whose 50-odd members had a blind-tasting of Castellón’s wines in November 2009, and selected the highest-ranking 14 wines (from 9 bodegas) for presentation to the public on Saturday January 30, 2010. It was good to see several hundred people in the Casino gardens really paying attention to and enjoying their local wines.
The bodegas included:
Bodegas y Viñedos Baron d’Alba
I very much enjoyed the wines, which were mostly reds, and the bottles that linger most clearly in my memory are the Clotàs from Vicente Flors, the Vega Palancia Etiqueta Negra, the Selección from Masía de la Hoya, and the Magnanimus from Mayo García.
There’s a lot to be said for wines like these from areas that are on the fringes of today’s wine map. The people who make them tend to be passionate about what they do and their locality. The battles they have fought and continue to fight to get recognition for their wines have steeled them to produce the best wines they can. I thoroughly recommend keeping an eye out for the wines of Castellón, and also visiting the city and province. This was my first proper visit, and I know that there is plenty more to discover, gastronomically and otherwise. The next day there were some 12,000 people on the streets of Benicarló — once famous for its wine — celebrating the “Demostración Gastronómica de la Alcachofa de Benicarló” as part of their annual artichoke festival. I look forward to exploring all such possibilities more fully.
