Bodegas la Purísima Campules La Pelirroja Monastrell Rosé Yecla
£8.45
The wine
Pale salmon in colour, this refreshing rose is soft, light and fruity with delicate aromas of ripe strawberry and tangy red fruit through to a moreish finish. Monastrell makes a surprisingly delicate pink.
La Pelirroja means the redhead. Monastrell is bled off its skins after a few hours to make this, taking colour and red-berry perfume but leaving the firm tannin behind. The grape is known as Mourvedre in France and needs more heat than almost any other variety, which is why it thrives here.
The producer
Bodegas la Purísima
View all Bodegas la Purísima winesBodegas la Purisima is a growers' cooperative at Yecla in Murcia, founded in 1946 and now drawing on around a thousand members farming some 2,000 hectares.
Yecla is Monastrell country. The grape is known as Mourvedre in France and Mataro in Australia, and it needs more heat than almost any other variety to ripen properly, which is why it thrives in this arid corner of south-eastern Spain and struggles almost everywhere else. Vineyards sit at 600 to 800 metres on poor limestone soils, with barely 300 millimetres of rain a year and old bush vines that are dry-farmed by necessity.
Those conditions produce concentrated fruit at very low yields, which is why wines from Yecla and its neighbours Jumilla and Almansa offer some of the best value in Europe. Monastrell gives deep colour, firm tannin and a savoury, faintly gamey character that sets it apart from the softer Spanish reds further north.
