Manuel Manzaneque Suarez ¡Ea! Tinto

Description

Manuel Manzaneque Suarez ¡Ea! Tinto is a red wine made with 100% Tempranillo grapes sourced from the wine-growing region of La Mancha located in central Spain. It is bottled as a DO La Mancha. Tempranillo is also known locally in La Mancha as Cencibel.

EA Vinos is a wine project by viticulturalist and oenologist Manuel Manzaneque Suarez. Some might be familiar with the name, Manuel’s father Manuel Manzaneque senior, founded a wine estate called Finca Elez which was one of the very first single estate wineries in Spain to be given its own DO, DO Finca Elez. It was only natural that Manuel Manzaneque Suarez would follow into the family business. Manuel studied Viticulture and Oenology at Montpellier SupAgro in France and went on to work harvests in the South of France, Spain and Bordeaux.  Eventually Manuel went on to be technical director of the family estate at El Bonillo, a job he did for 10 years.

In 2011 Manuel started his own wine project and in 2012 he left the family firm to concentrate solely on EA Vinos. The idea behind EA Vinos is to concentrate on indigenous grape varieties and to demonstrate that high quality wines can be in DO La Mancha. He has experimented with Bobal, Garnacha Tintorera and Cencibel (the local name for Tempranillo) from 30 to 70 year old vines. Manuel is also a consultant for to many wineries in the region, so I am sure he has good access to parcels of grapes! EA Vinos currently produce four wines, this one, an old vine single vineyard Cencibel called Mil Cepas and a red wine called Fatum.

Manuel Manzaneque Suarez ¡Ea! Tinto is a wine created by Manuel and his wife,  Paloma Mínguez, both of whom are passionate about the wines and gastronomy of La Mancha. Manuel considers DO La Mancha to offer some of the quality/price ratio in the world and for ¡Ea! he has sourced only very old low-yielding Tempranillo (Cencibel) vines – these 40-70 year old vines are grown in different zones of La Mancha; Las Mesas, Pedroñeras, El Provencio, San Clemente and Villarrobledo. The grapes are sourced from various growers and are only harvested at optimum ripeness. They undergo a period of cold maceration for 4 days at 12c followed by fermentation in stainless steel at 25c using only indigenous yeasts. The wine is allowed to undergo malolactic fermentation in stainless steel prior for between 4 to 8 months, depending on vintage, in French and American oak barrels. The 2015 is aged for 6 months.

¡Ea! means “Hey!” in Spanish and in La Mancha it is commonly used to mean “yeah” or “okay”.