La Mancha organic wines

With around 200,000 hectares, La Mancha is the world's largest contiguous wine-growing region, which became famous through the adventures of Don Quixote and the white windmills scattered throughout the country.

As a wine producer, apart from a few exceptions, it is still considered the location of huge cooperatives with several thousand hectares of vineyards and as a supplier of cheap bulk wines,

which also reach Germany in organic quality from German importers in tankers and are bottled here. Evidence of their origin is rarely provided.

An alternative is offered by some smaller, family-run wineries that produce higher-quality organic wine, bottle it themselves and offer it at fair prices.

The name La Mancha may derive from the Arabic "manxa", meaning dry land, or, as linguists say, "la más ancha", meaning the widest. Be that as it may, both terms are accurate.

Castile La Mancha consists of four provinces namely Toledo, Cuenca, Albacete and Ciudad Real. The wine-growing areas are located at an average altitude of 700 m, with few small valleys or hills. The climate is archetypal continental with 3,000 hours of sunshine/year, very cold winter temperatures of down to minus 15 °C, which almost immediately turn into summer with up to 45 °C.

The mountains surrounding La Mancha prevent the ingress of humid air masses from the Mediterranean, resulting in sparse rainfall of only 300-400 mm/year. The red-brown soils are mostly red clay, although there are also areas with high limestone content, which are particularly well sought after for the production of quality wines.

Under these conditions, only viticulture and arable farming are of greater economic importance. In addition, the breeding and husbandry of the Manchego sheep plays a minor role, with the Manchego cheese produced being world-renowned for its typical character, firm consistency, buttery texture and white to ivory colour, which varies depending on its age of 2 months up to 2 years. The designation of Manchego cheese is protected under the Spanish Designation of Origin (DO), comparable to the D.O. Wine classification.

By the way, unemployment in the La Mancha region is one of the highest in
Spain. It also goes back to the automation of the huge vineyards of the cooperatives, which not only leads to the emigration of young people who no longer see any prospects here, but also to depopulation.