Bodegas Verum

Bodegas Verum

【The young reformer redrawing La Mancha】

La Mancha, the great heart of Spain. Out on that vast plain, in the town of Tomelloso, Verum has made a name for itself doing exactly what its name suggests — showing the world the truth of what this land can do. Winemaker Elías López Montero is the youngest son of a family that has made wine and spirits here for four generations. He began his career locally in 2001, honed his craft at Aalto in Ribera del Duero and at Distell in South Africa, and in 2005 founded Bodegas Verum with his family. He is widely regarded as the pioneer of fine wine in La Mancha. His guiding idea is simple: not to master nature but to understand it and guide it with respect. Everything is picked by hand and sorted, and production is deliberately small. Yields are held below 6,000 kg per hectare, with green harvesting and cover crops among the sustainable practices in place. The vineyards sit high, at 650 to 750 metres, on the soil known locally as tosca — a thin topsoil over limestone bedrock — where wide day-to-night temperature swings and a dry climate give fruit that is both concentrated and firmly acidic.

The Las Tinadas range has caught the eye of the wine world as the new face of La Mancha. Chief among them, Las Tinadas Airén de Pie Franco, made from ungrafted old-vine Airén, upends everything the variety's bulk-wine reputation would lead you to expect. Aged in clay amphorae and stainless steel, it offers a complex nose of citrus, white fruit and herbs, with a saline mineral streak running right through it. The wine has won praise from Jancis Robinson MW, Tim Atkin and Decanter alike, and is spoken of as a bottle that points to the future of Spanish wine.

Verum explores the depth of La Mancha's terroir across a broad range, including Las Tinadas Cencibel, a Tempranillo aged in amphora. Whatever the cuvée, the through-line is the same: purity of fruit, taut acidity, mineral drive and a refined sense of structure.

Elías López Montero was named by Decanter in 2018 as one of ten young winemakers building the future of Spanish wine, and in 2021 he was chosen as the world's best wine producer at Germany's Respected by Gaggenau awards — international recognition that keeps on growing.

Tradition, innovation and an unwavering belief in the real thing: Verum is opening the way forward for La Mancha, and shining on the world stage as it does.