Valdepeñas

Dawn at 700 Metres

The thermometer reads six degrees at seven o'clock, even in late April. Mist hangs over the red-clay vineyards that ring Valdepeñas, 700 metres above sea level on Spain's southern plateau. By noon the same day you'll be stripping off your jumper as the mercury nudges thirty. This daily swing—more like a Continental mountain climate than the baking Costa del Sol—explains why the local tempranillo grapes keep their acidity and why a decent crianza costs less than a tenner.

British visitors arriving on the morning train from Madrid step onto the platform exactly 135 minutes after leaving Atocha. No shuttle buses, no taxi queues: the historic centre is a ten-minute flat walk north, past the aluminium-clad wine cooperative that pumps out the town's supermarket label. The architecture won't make you gasp—stucco façades in ochre and beige, the odd modern block—but the pace is immediately slower than the capital and the air smells faintly of must.

A Museum That Starts in a 19th-Century Cave

The Wine Museum occupies a sandstone warehouse sunk half-underground to keep barrels cool. English captions walk you through Roman amphorae, Moorish alquitars and 1950s concrete tanks still in use at family bodegas. Entry is €5 and includes a nip of joven—an unoaked, plum-coloured glug designed to be drunk within a year. Locals treat it like table wine; most British tourists end up buying a plastic five-litre cubi to haul home in the hold.

Outside, the Plaza de España functions as open-air living room. Pensioners occupy the stone benches at ten for a cortado; by eleven the first tapas appear—manchego curado drizzled with local olive oil, cubes of melting pork cheek, slices of morcilla sweeter than any black pudding in Lancashire. A three-course menú del día with a glass of DO Valdepeñas wine rarely tops €12. You could pay that for a single glass back in London.

Cellar Doors Without the Rioja Price Tag

Bodegas Real and Félix Solís run daily English-language tours (€10, book online) that finish with guided tastings of crianza and reserva. Smaller outfits—look for the hand-painted signs on Calle Cristo—will open up if you phone the day before. Their cellars are dug eight metres into the clay; the temperature stays a constant 14 °C year-round, so bring a jacket even if it's scorching outside. Expect to pay €6–8 a bottle for reds that would fetch £20 on UK shelves.

The town's altitude means frost can linger into May, so vintage timing shifts each year. Harvest normally starts mid-September, when temporary workers from Ecuador and Romania swell the population by a couple of thousand. If you visit then, book accommodation early and expect restaurant queues after 21:30.

Flat Roads, Sharp Wind

Cyclists can rent a hybrid for €15 a day from the shop opposite the bus station. Head west on the CM-411 and you roll through regimented vineyards for 25 km without a hill. The tarmac is smooth, traffic light and every kilometre marked by stone wine presses abandoned in the 1960s. Take a packable anorak: when the sun drops behind the Sierra Morena the wind slices straight across the plateau.

For walkers the Camino de la Plata follows an old railway line south to Santa Cruz de Mudela. It's a gentle 12-km out-and-back through holm-oak pasture; vultures wheel overhead and you'll meet more sheep than people. The path is unsigned in places—download the GPS track before you leave town.

Roast Lamb and 4 a.m. Processions

Food is built for cold nights. Cordero asado—whole lamb shoulder slow-cooked in a wood-fired oven—feeds two hungry hikers and arrives with only a wedge of lemon and a bottle of reserva for company. Vegetarians aren't abandoned: pisto manchego (pepper and aubergine stew) tastes like a smoky ratatouille and comes topped with a fried egg if you want the authentic touch. Finish with arroz con leche punched up with cinnamon, then try to stay awake for the evening promenade that circles the square until well past midnight.

Fiestas begin on 8 September with the Grape Treading competition in the Plaza de España. Teams of teenagers stomp 200 kilos of tempranillo while a brass band plays; purple juice streams across the cobbles and the smell of fermentation hangs in the air for days. It's brilliant, loud and packed—rooms triple in price and the Sunday-night coach back to Madrid sells out weeks ahead.

When the Mist Becomes Rain

Winter brings the opposite problem. Night temperatures dip below zero, fog drapes the town for days and some bodegas close for maintenance. Trains still run but the region's first proper rainfall since May can wash out vineyard tracks, so rural bike routes turn to clay soup. Visit between late March and mid-June instead: the vines are a luminous lime-green, days hover around 24 °C and you can taste outside in a T-shirt—until the sun slips behind the church tower and you remember why the locals keep a fleece on the back of every chair.

Pack layers, a thirst for robust reds and the Spanish phrase for "another tapa, please". Valdepeñas won't give you honey-coloured villages or Moorish palaces; it delivers something more useful—honest wine, fair prices and a plateau light so sharp it feels like you've stepped onto a cinema set. The train back to Madrid leaves four times a day. Most travellers find the 15:15 service surprisingly quiet; the weekend party crowd are still at lunch.