Manuel Manzaneque Suarez Mil Cepas Bobal

Description

Manuel Manzaneque Suarez Mil Cepas Bobal is a red wine produced in Valencia. It is bottled as a Valencia DO “Vino de Parcela”, a single vineyard wine, and is organically certified. Bobal is native to the Utiel-Requena region of Valencia.

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! As well as the Mil Cepas wines, they also produce Ea, Fatum and a Cava under the Paloma Minguez label.

As mentioned the 100% Bobal grapes for the Manuel Manzaneque Suarez Mil Cepas Bobal come from a single vineyard located of 0.9 hectares located in  La Palomera (Casas del Rey, Valencia). The average age of the vines is 60years old and the soils here are sandy, with gravel in the subsoil, poor, fresh, loose and well drained. All the vineyard work, winter pruning, green pruning and harvest, maturation monitoring is carried out by Manuel, Paloma and their team. The grapes undergo a traditional vinification, 15% whole bunch with stems. The wine undergoes a preferment cold maceration for 4 days at 12ºC to extract aromas. Fermentation is then carried out at 22ºC in presses with indigenous yeasts. The wine is allowed to under malolactic fermentation in French oak barrels and is aged for 14 months in barrel.