Castrillo de Duero

The tractor judders to a halt outside Bar El Foro at 11:03 sharp. The driver, still dusted with vineyard soil, swings down, orders a caña, and within three minutes is debating last night's Real Valladolid score with the only other customer. This is morning rush hour in Castrillo de Duero, a single-street village where the population (152 at last count) is comfortably outnumbered by the surrounding vines.

Eight hundred metres above sea level on the Castilian plateau, the place feels suspended between centuries. Mobile phones lose the plot inside the thick stone houses, bank cards are useless (there is no cash machine), and the nearest supermarket sits fifteen minutes away in Peñafiel. What Castrillo does possess is an almost embarrassing surplus of horizon: ranks of tempranillo grapes march towards a skyline punctuated by Peñafiel's medieval castle, a long, narrow fortress that looks more like a ship run aground than a building.

Vine roots and village roots

Every family here has a story that starts underground. Bodegas—small, rock-cut cellars—honeycomb the hillside beneath the houses. Many are still private, their rough-chiselled stairs descending to constant 12 °C gloom where wine once rested in clay tinajas. You will not find signs or opening hours; access depends on catching the owner before he drives off to spray the vines. Ask politely at the bar and someone will usually fetch a key, though the tour lasts exactly as long as a generous pour and two anecdotes. That is half the charm.

For a slicker experience, book ahead at Cepa 21, the contemporary winery that sits two kilometres south on the Peñafiel road. Its glass-and-steel cube rises from the vineyards like a Bond villain's lair, but the staff greet visitors with easy English and a sense of humour. Tastings start at 11 am when the thermometer is still below 30 °C; the flagship "Hito" tempranillo slips down with enough plum and vanilla to convert the most devout New-World drinker. Weekend slots sell out first—email, don't ring, because the mobile signal in the vineyard is capricious.

Walking off the lamb

Castrillo makes a convenient base for the Ribera del Duero's undemanding trails. A four-kilometre loop heads west along a farm track, dips into a shallow ravine of holm oak, then climbs gently to a ridge where the Duero River glints silver far below. The path is unsigned but obvious: keep the castle on your left shoulder and the telecom mast on your right. Binoculars help—red kites circle overhead, and September brings frantic activity as pickers fill crates destined for the cooperative in Pesquera.

Serious walkers can link to the Senda del Duero, a long-distance path that shadows the river between Soria and Valladolid. The nearest access point is four kilometres north at Pesquera de Duero; arrange a taxi back unless you fancy a 16-kilometre out-and-back under a sky that gives no quarter. Summer heat is brutal: start at sunrise or wait until the vines blush red in late October and the air smells of fermenting grapes.

One bar, one oven, no rush

Food here is engineered for field labour. Lunch is cordero lechal—milk-fed lamb—slow-roasted in a wood-fired oven until the skin shatters like thin toffee. The meat arrives in a clay dish, pale, tender and reassuringly free of anything that might alarm a British palate. A half portion feeds two; a full portion could anchor a small boat. Pair it with a glass of local tinto and follow with queso de oveja curado, a mild sheep's cheese that tastes of thyme and dry straw. Vegetarians should lower expectations: the seasonal alternative is pimientos del piquillo stuffed with salt-cod brandade, delicious but hardly plant-based.

Bar El Foro is the only game in town. Kitchen hours obey the Castilian clock: food appears between 1 pm and 4 pm, then again after 9 pm. Arrive at 7 pm and you will get crisps and a sympathetic shrug. Sunday lunchtime everything shuts; buy bread, cheese and tomatoes in Peñafiel on Saturday or resign yourself to winery restaurant prices.

Where to lay your head

Castrillo itself offers no beds. Most visitors stay in Peñafiel, fifteen minutes by car, where the three-star Hotel Ribera del Duero has serviceable rooms from €70 and underground parking thick with the smell of oak barrels. Boutique vineyard guesthouses—designer cubes dropped among the vines—start at €180 and include breakfast on a terrace that faces east into the sunrise haze. Book early for April and October; those months coincide with barrel-tasting weekends and the place fills with Madrileños speaking faster Spanish than you ever heard in GCSE class.

Public transport exists but behaves like a shy animal. The last bus from Valladolid leaves at 6 pm; miss it and a taxi costs €80. There is no Sunday service at all. Hire a car at Valladolid airport (Ryanair from Stansted, 2 h 10 min) and you gain the freedom to zig-zag between villages, each one cresting its own ridge like a ship on a petrified sea.

The catch in the Rioja-beater fantasy

Castrillo's simplicity is both virtue and trap. August turns the landscape into a hair-dryer blast—thermometers kiss 38 °C by 3 pm, and shade is as rare as a bargain Rioja. Mobile coverage vanishes inside the stone houses; step outside, stand still, and the signal returns. Rain is scarce but when it arrives the clay tracks glue themselves to boots and hire-car tyres alike. Winter brings the opposite problem: clear, sharp days of minus 5 °C and a wind that slices straight through Barbour jackets meant for the Cotswolds.

And the village is quiet—really quiet. After 11 pm the only sound is the clank of a distant irrigation pump and the occasional bark of a dog that has remembered it is a dog. Come prepared with podcasts, a decent novel, or a willingness to sit on a bench and listen to grapes ripening.

Last orders

Leave at harvest time and you will see Castrillo at its most sociable. Tractors nose down the street hauling trailers of grapes, children scamper after them collecting fallen bunches, and the air smells faintly of juice beginning its journey to next year's bottle. Stay outside those weeks and you may have the place to yourself, save for the retired shepherd who drinks his coffee at 10 am sharp and nods a courteous but non-committal "Buenos días."

Either way, bring cash, a phrasebook, and realistic expectations. Castrillo de Duero will not entertain you, but it will let you eavesdrop on a corner of Spain that package tours have not yet rearranged. If that sounds like work, head for the coast. If it sounds like breathing space, park beneath the plane trees, order another caña, and watch the vines outnumber the humans by a margin they are happy to keep.