Mutxamel
Alicante/Alacant · Valencian Community
DO Alicante28.621inhabitants
1569first mention
1510wine documented
A town of the Huerta de Alicante (L'Alacantí), of uncertain origin, which separated from the municipal territory of Alicante in 1580 and became a royal town in 1628.
First mention: First references in 1569, in Valencian as 'Muchamel', and in 1609; work on the parish church began in 1511.
The legend
wine privilege for the district of Alicante 1510; independence of Mutxamel 1580The huerta of Alicante's wine privilege
Mutxamel is one of the towns of the Huerta de Alicante, irrigated since the 13th century by the Mutxamel weir and, from the late 16th century, by the Tibi reservoir. Until 1580 its huerta was part of the district of Alicante, and it was for precisely that district that Ferdinand the Catholic issued the wine privilege in 1510: wines from elsewhere could not be sold in the city, and throughout the 17th and 18th centuries only the wine from its district was shipped through the port. From that huerta came the famous Alicante wine and its fondillón. Over time, market-garden crops and tourism pushed the vineyard aside. Today a family foundation, on an estate in the district of L'Almajada, still makes wine within the DOP. That Mutxamel belonged to that district in 1510 is documented; that its vineyards were covered by the privilege is an inference.
Alive today: The winery of the Fundación Mª Luisa Albert Leach (Finca Cassou, L'Almajada) and Mutxamel's traditional huerta, linked to the L'Alacantí subzone.
Wineries and their wines
Fundación Mª Luisa Albert Leach
Wine towns nearby