Sisante
Cuenca · Castilla–La Mancha
DO La ManchaDO Ribera del Júcar1.640inhabitants
1537first mention
1752wine documented
A municipality of the Cuenca Manchuela, on the banks of the Júcar. According to the town council, its definitive foundation postdates the conquest of the area by Alfonso VIII (1177); it was a hamlet of the Marquisate of Villena and later of Vara de Rey, until it obtained town status from Philip IV in 1653.
First mention: The town council cites as the oldest documented facts the purchase of Sisante by Vara de Rey in 1537 and the patronage of Santa Catalina in 1538. Its identification with Ptolemy's Mediolum is an unconfirmed theory.
The legend
documented 1752-1754 (magistrate’s lawsuit); Madoz 1849; cooperative 1954; DO 2003The magistrate’s lawsuit and the abundant wine of Sisante
In the mid-18th century nobody wanted to pay the corregidor’s salary. The Council of Castile ordered Sisante, Vara de Rey and their hamlets to bear the cost, and when these pleaded poverty, the residents of La Roda and Minaya protested: Sisante and Vara de Rey, they said, harvested a great deal of wine, saffron and oil and carried on a brisk trade. The report requested from the revenue superintendency of Cuenca in 1754 put the district’s wine at thousands of arrobas. A century later, Madoz’s dictionary still described Sisante as a land of little cereal and much wine. That winegrowing vocation, on soils of rounded river stones beside the Júcar, is what gave rise in 2003 to the denomination, which has its headquarters here.
Alive today: Sisante is home to the Regulatory Council of the DO Ribera del Júcar (C/ Deportes, 4), created in 2003 and known for its vineyards on rounded river stones. In the town the Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno cooperative makes wine and olive oil; it was founded in 1954 by farmers who pooled their harvests and today brings together some 150 members and 600 hectares.
Wineries and their wines
Wine towns nearby