Carmela: A Modern Spanish Range from 175 Years of Winemaking

Carmela is a young, approachable range of varietal wines — but the winery behind it has been making wine in the heart of Spain since well before the country had electricity. Understanding Carmela means understanding Bodegas Fernando Castro, the family estate in Valdepeñas that has quietly grown into one of the region’s most significant producers.

A Family Winery Since 1850

Bodegas Fernando Castro traces its roots back to 1850, when the Castro family began producing red and white wine from their own vineyards in Santa Cruz de Mudela, in Castilla-La Mancha, following the traditional artisanal methods of the region. Commercial winemaking properly began a few years later under Juan Manuel Castro Corredor, working within the winemaking traditions of Valdepeñas.

The winery’s reach grew early and quickly. By 1895, Bodegas Fernando Castro wines were being sold in Madrid, carried there by the famous “Wine Train.” Not long after, the winery began exporting to the former Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, shipped largely through the Port of Cádiz — building trust with major overseas buyers well over a century ago. Today that international reach has grown to more than 80 countries, run by two generations of the Castro family working alongside a team of winemaking professionals in modern, purpose-built facilities.

Scale Built on Tradition

What’s notable about Bodegas Fernando Castro today is the scale behind the family name: a 46,000 m² site with stainless steel tank capacity of 25 million liters, eight packaging lines (including dedicated lines for still wine, sparkling wine, bag-in-box, and Spain’s only carton-bottle line), storage for 6 million bottles, and aging cellars able to hold 14,000 oak barrels. The winery holds BRC and IFS quality certifications alongside organic, vegan and Halal certifications, and its wines regularly pick up medals at competitions like the Berliner Wein Trophy, Mundus Vini and the Sakura Japan Awards.

Valdepeñas: Vines on the High Plateau

The estate’s vineyards sit on the southern edge of the Iberian plateau, around Finca Los Altos at roughly 705 meters above sea level — part of the Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) Valdepeñas, in the heart of La Mancha. The soils here are a mix of limestone, sandy loam and yellowish-red clay, low in organic matter and naturally low-fertility — conditions well suited to grape growing rather than working against it.

The climate is properly continental: summer highs can pass 40°C and winter lows can drop below -10°C, with an annual average around 16°C, and more than 2,500 hours of sunshine a year. That combination of intense sun and wide temperature swings pushes grapes toward deep color, solid structure and real aromatic intensity — the raw material that gives Carmela’s wines their character.

The Carmela Range

Carmela itself is Bodegas Fernando Castro’s modern varietal line — a range built to showcase individual grape varieties in an easy-drinking, accessible style rather than chasing a single flagship wine. The lineup spans both still and sparkling styles, including Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Tempranillo, Sauvignon Blanc and Tempranillo Rosé, alongside a run of sparkling wines such as Brut, Rosé Brut and an Orange Sparkling Brut. It’s a range designed less around prestige and more around variety and everyday approachability — a modern face for a winery with over a century and a half of history behind it.