Chief town of the Murcian Altiplano. Its origin as a stable settlement is the Andalusi castle of Hisn Yakka, which arose in the late 11th century; after 1243 and the Mudéjar revolt (1264–1266) the place was resettled by Christians on the northern slope of the Castle hill.
Roman winery 1st century AD (archaeology); Franciscans 1564; nickname ‘wine cellar of Murcia’ 17th centuryThe Roman winery of Fuente del Pinar and ‘the wine cellar of Murcia’
The people of Yecla place the beginnings of their wine in Roman times. Near the Via Augusta, at the site of Fuente del Pinar, the remains of a 1st-century winery of about 800 square metres were excavated, with rooms around a central hall where the grapes were trodden; from there it would have supplied villas such as Los Torrejones, where a relief with a bunch of grapes was found. Local memory also keeps a smaller scene: when the Franciscans, who arrived in 1564 at the hermitage of the Magdalena, moved to that of San Sebastián, the young friars carried the little they had, and among it a vessel of wine. In the 17th century, with more vineyards and cellars, Yecla came to be called ‘the wine cellar of Murcia’.
Alive today: Yecla is a municipality that forms the DOP Yecla on its own, regulated in 1975, and lives off Monastrell: most of its wine is exported. In early September it holds the Grape Harvest Fair and National Folklore Festival, which opens with the treading of the grapes and a toast with the first must in the Parque de la Constitución, co-organised with the Consejo Regulador.