Requena
Valencia/València · Valencian Community
DO CavaDO Utiel-RequenaVP Chozas CarrascalVP Los BalaguesesVP Tharsys20.982inhabitants
600 BCwine documented
A town in inland Valencia, head of the DO Utiel-Requena. It was the Muslim Rakkana; it probably passed to Castile in 1238, and in 1257 Alfonso X granted it a settlement charter and the Fuero of Cuenca, as a royal town and head of its Comunidad de Villa y Tierra.
First mention: As Rakkana it appears in chronicles of the routes taken by the troops of the Caliphate of Córdoba in the mid-10th century (without precise title, author or date in the source consulted).
The legend
7th–6th century BCThe Iberian wine presses of the Solana de las Pilillas
In the Los Morenos ravine, within the municipality of Requena, the Iberians carved wine presses into large blocks of limestone. In them they trod the grapes, and the must ran into basins cut into the rock. Excavations by the archaeologist Asunción Martínez Valle, of the Requena Municipal Museum, date the start of their activity to between the end of the 7th and the beginning of the 6th century BC. Together with amphorae made in the area in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, they prove that wine was made very early on the Requena-Utiel plateau, not merely imported. It is one of the oldest wine-production complexes on the Peninsula.
Alive today: Requena lies in the DO Utiel-Requena (Bobal grape) and within the Cava area. Its Grape Harvest Fair and Festival has been held every August since 1948 and has been of Tourist Interest since 1966. The site has been a Bien de Interés Cultural since 2012 and is interpreted in the Municipal Museum. Bodegas such as Torre Oria (1897) are still active.
Wineries and their wines
- Seda Utiel-Requena Crianza
- Seda Utiel-Requena Joven
- Seda Utiel-Requena Reserva
- Torre Oria Cava Brut Nature (Organic)
- Torre Oria D.O. Utiel-Requena Crianza
- Torre Oria D.O. Utiel-Requena Gran Selección
- Torre Oria D.O. Utiel-Requena Reserva
- Torre Oria Rioja Crianza
Wine towns nearby