Villarrobledo

The Horizon That Never Arrives

Stand at the edge of Villarrobledo and the maths is immediate: 25,000 people, 30,000 hectares of vine, and a sky so wide it feels like someone has yanked the edges of the landscape sideways. At 721 m above sea level the air is thin enough to sharpen the smell of thyme on the breeze, yet the plain is so flat that the town’s 16th-century tower of San Blas remains visible ten kilometres out. This is Spain’s largest wine municipality by area—bigger than some counties—and the scale is best appreciated at dusk when the setting sun turns millions of leaves into a single, rippling copper sheet.

Most British drivers thunder down the A-3 Madrid–Valencia motorway, pause for petrol at the junction services, and never realise the old town lies two minutes north of the slip road. Those who do divert find a place that still runs on agricultural time: shops open at nine, shut at fourteen, and reopen when the thermometer finally relents after 17:30. Miss the window and you’ll be walking empty streets until the restaurants fire up their grills at 20:30—late for anyone used to eating at six, but non-negotiable here.

A Plaza That Measures the Day

Every Spanish town worth its salt has a main square; Villarrobledo has the Plaza del Altozano, and it behaves like a public sundial. By 11:00 the metal tables are already warming; by 13:00 the queue for churros at Cafetería Cristina snakes onto the pavement; by 16:00 only pigeons and the odd municipal street-sweeper remain. The pattern repeats seven days a week, though Monday is ghost-town quiet—most bars rinse their coffee machines and simply lock up.

The architecture framing the square is practical rather than pretty: ochre render, wooden balconies painted the colour of rioja stains, and a 19th-century town hall whose clock still strikes the quarters on time. Tourists looking for ornate ironwork will be disappointed; Villarrobledo spent its money on cellars, not façades. Peer through the wrought-iron gates of Calle San Quílez and you can glimpse mansion courtyards piled high with oak barrels instead of pot plants.

Wine That Travels Less Than the People

Bodega Cooperativa San Blas, five minutes’ walk south of the centre, offers hour-long tours in English if you e-mail ahead. The guide, usually a third-generation grower called Miguel, starts with a blunt statistic: 85 % of the town’s wine leaves Spain in bulk tankers, bound for supermarkets in Germany and France where it is bottled under foreign labels. The tasting, therefore, is often the first chance locals themselves get to see their own product in a branded bottle. Expect crisp Airén whites that cost €3.50 at the on-site shop—less than the airport duty-free charges for water.

For something darker, try Pago de la Serna on the road to El Bonillo. The estate keeps 120 ha of old-vine Cencibel (the local Tempranillo clone) and ages the top cuvée for fourteen months in new French oak. A bottle retails at €14, roughly half what you would pay for an equivalent Rioja in the UK, and they will ship six-bottle cases within the EU for another €18. Harvest weekends in mid-September fill up early; book before July or you will be offered a waiting list and a polite shrug.

Lamb, Cheese and the Garlic Rule

Villarrobledo’s restaurants assume you have driven, you are hungry, and you do not need to be anywhere afterwards. Portions are calibrated for field workers, not desk workers. At Asador Legazpi on Calle Carrera, half a kilo of charcoal-grilled lamb chops arrives on a heated terracotta tile; the waiter will happily split the order for two, but only after a theatrical raising of eyebrows. Vegetarians survive on pisto manchego—pepper, aubergine and tomato stew topped with a fried egg—while the truly brave order duelos y quebrantos, a scram of egg, chorizo and cured ham that Don Quixote supposedly favoured for breakfast.

The local queso manchego is aged for twelve months, giving it a nuttier edge than the plastic-wrapped wedges sold in British supermarkets. Restaurante Azafrán keeps a 2 kg wheel on the counter and will carve you a 100 g portion to nibble with a glass of crianza while you decide whether you can face the full menu. Sunday lunch here starts at 15:00 sharp; arrive at 15:30 and the dining room is already on coffee and cigars.

When the Plain Turns Against You

Summer is relentless. Daytime temperatures flirt with 40 °C and the wind that sweeps across the meseta feels like someone pointing a hair-dryer at your face. The town’s strategy is to dig downwards: many houses have cave basements that stay at 16 °C year-round, and the public outdoor pool on Avenida de la Mancha charges €3 for a day ticket that includes shade sails and a lukewarm shower. Winters, by contrast, drop to –5 °C at night; the same flat geography that lets you see the cathedral tower for miles also lets the cold roll across the vines like fog. If you visit between December and February, pack the sort of coat you would take to the Peak District, not the Costa Blanca.

Getting Stuck (and Unstuck)

There is no left-luggage office at either the bus or the new AVE rail station, an omission that puzzles the handful of Brits who arrive hoping to kill three hours between trains. The tourist office on Plaza de España keeps erratic hours—officially 10:00-14:00, but the lone attendant sometimes nips out for coffee and forgets to return. Print your own map before you leave Madrid, or download the town council’s PDF over hotel Wi-Fi; roaming data on the plain is patchy once you stray beyond the main drag.

Driving remains the sensible option. The A-3 is a straight 90-minute dash from Madrid Barajas, and Villarrobledo has four large free car parks signposted on the ring road. Hotel Castillo, the best-reviewed option, offers underground parking with CCTV, a detail that matters more to British guests than the marble lobby. Rooms cost €65-85 depending on season, including a breakfast buffet that runs to tortilla, cured meats and surprisingly drinkable filter coffee—not always a given in provincial Spain.

Leaving Without the Souvenir

There is no fridge-magnet shop, no flamenco dress boutique, nobody dressed as a windmill. What you can buy is practical: a 5-litre plastic drum of extra-virgin oil from the cooperative on Calle Valencia (€18), a leather wine bottle holder handmade by the cobbler opposite the church (€22), or—if you ask in the right bar—a spare ticket to the September grape-treading contest that passes for local theatre. Take it, watch the purple juice squirt over laughing children, and you will understand why Villarrobledo does not bother pretending to be anything other than itself.