Bodegas y Viñedos Ponce

The story

Eleven Barrels

In 2005, Juan Antonio Ponce sat down with his father and made a proposal: stop selling to the cooperative. The family had delivered grapes from their Manchuela parcels to the local cooperative for three generations, since 1953. Nobody in the family had ever put their name on a bottle. Ponce had just come back from training across Spain under Telmo Rodríguez, and he had a figure in mind: 60,000 euros borrowed, eleven barrels, a winery started from nothing in a region where the only working model was bulk. His father agreed. That first vintage came from those eleven barrels, from Bobal that most of the market still considered too coarse to bother with. The estate now produces around 100,000 bottles a year, all under the Ponce name, all from the same plateau where the cooperative tanks used to be the only destination.

From the atlas

Bodegas y Viñedos Ponce

At A Glance

The Producer

Juan Antonio Ponce returned to his home territory of Iniesta, in the Manchuela DO along the Cuenca-Albacete border, with a plan that made no commercial sense on paper. He was 23. His family had grown grapes there since 1953 and sold every harvest to the local cooperative. In 2005, Ponce borrowed roughly 60,000 euros, persuaded his father to break that arrangement, and started a winery with eleven barrels.

Manchuela at that moment was a cooperative region, producing bulk wine from Bobal, a grape with thick, hard tannins that the broader market had never taken seriously as a fine-wine variety. Ponce had trained under Telmo Rodríguez, working through Rioja, Toro, Gredos, Alicante and Ronda, watching what attentive farming and plot-by-plot cellar work could do in places that had also carried a bulk-wine reputation. He came back to Iniesta carrying those ideas and applied them to a grape nobody in his region had bet on.

The estate farms biodynamically and organically. Ponce abandoned sulfur powder in the vineyard from 2007, and later copper as well, vinifying each small plot separately by hand.

Place

Manchuela DO sits on a high limestone plateau south-east of Madrid, straddling the provinces of Cuenca and Albacete in Castilla-La Mancha. The altitude moderates what would otherwise be a fiercely hot continental climate, keeping nights cool enough to hold acidity through the growing season. That acidity is the thread running through every bottle in the Ponce range.

Bobal is the dominant grape of the plateau, covering most of the cooperatives' planted area. It is not a naturally fine-wine grape: at full maturity, its tannins turn aggressive and coarse, and most growers historically left it to ripen fully before handing it over for bulk blending. The DO label on a Ponce bottle means the wine comes from that plateau, from the same Bobal that filled cooperative tanks for decades, handled differently.

Soil And Site

The parcels Ponce farms sit on limestone soils. The Pino label comes specifically from limestone ground, and the mineral quality noted across the range traces back to that substrate. Altitude gives the growing season length; limestone gives the wines their grip and their cut. Wild herbs grow among the vines and Ponce assesses them annually as part of the biodynamic calendar, reading the plant community as a signal of soil health rather than a weed problem.

Story

The family's connection to the land around Iniesta runs back to 1953. For three generations, the grapes went to cooperatives. The logic was sound: Manchuela had no fine-wine market, Bobal had no fine-wine reputation, and the cooperative system guaranteed a return. Ponce trained under Telmo Rodríguez because Rodríguez had worked in regions facing the same commercial problem, places where the default was bulk and the fine-wine reputation had to be built from scratch.

Ponce came home in 2005 and broke with cooperative selling. The winery started with eleven barrels. As the estate grew, the farming moved toward biodynamics: no synthetic inputs, no sulfur powder after 2007, each small parcel vinified separately to preserve what that particular piece of ground was contributing. The wine output today runs to roughly 100,000 bottles. Bobal is still the centre. Early harvesting is the practice used to control it.

Vineyards And Cellar

Ponce picks Bobal earlier than the regional average. Bobal's hard tannins are a function of full maturity; an earlier pick catches the fruit before those tannins calcify, producing a finer, more integrated grain rather than the aggressive extraction that made the variety a bulk staple. The trade-off is less sugar accumulation, which means lower alcohol and more pronounced acidity, both of which suit the style Ponce is building.

Each plot is vinified separately by hand. That decision keeps the character of individual parcels legible in the final wine, rather than blending it into a house average. Fermentation uses wild yeasts from the vineyard. The biodynamic calendar governs timing decisions in both vineyard and cellar.

Pino comes from limestone parcels and goes through ageing that rewards patience; the wine is released with bottle ageing ahead of it rather than behind it. Ponce Blanco from Albilla likely sees minimal intervention in keeping with the estate's broader approach, producing a white with bakery and mineral notes alongside its fruit.

Wines

The range covers four labels across two red grapes and one white.

Ponce Bobal is the estate's signature wine. It carries black and red cherry aromatics with dried herb complexity and secondary spice, ginger and pepper coming through underneath the fruit. On the palate it is vivid and spicy, with pronounced acidity working against supple red fruit and a mineral grip at the close. It reads like a wine that has been picked for freshness rather than weight.

Ponce Pino is a red from limestone soils. Bright redcurrant and lively red fruit on the nose, with mineral complexity and fine spice notes. The acid line is defined. Pino has documented ageing potential and is assessed as benefiting from further time in bottle after release, making it the range's longer-term proposition.

La Xara is the Garnacha label. The 2021 shows strawberry, raspberry, violet and iris aromatics with lifted acidity and quite present, fine tannins. The palate is lithe and bouncy with fresh, vibrant fruit character. It is the most immediately approachable wine in the range.

Ponce Blanco is made from Albilla, a local white variety. The 2022 shows citrus, white fruit, wild herbs, mineral and bakery notes on the nose. The palate is balanced and mineral, with good acidity, grapefruit citrus and a light bitter edge on the finish.

In The Glass

Bobal is the clearest expression of what the Ponce approach produces. The nose rises with black cherry and red cherry, dried herb pulling underneath, then ginger and pepper asserting themselves as the wine opens. In the mouth it is vivid and spicy, the acidity prominent and forward, the tannins finer than the variety's reputation would suggest. Supple red fruit carries through the mid-palate with a mineral grip at the close.

La Xara Garnacha is different in register: the aromatics are floral and lifted, strawberry and raspberry leading, violet and iris threading through. The palate is light-footed and bouncy, the tannins quite present but fine enough to keep the wine easy-going. It finishes fresh.

Ponce Blanco opens on citrus and white fruit with wild herbs and a mineral note, and a faint bakery quality in the background. In the mouth it is balanced and mineral, grapefruit dominant, the acidity clean and the finish carrying a light bitterness that keeps the wine from going soft.

Across the range, the common register is freshness over extraction, acidity over weight, and a mineral quality that traces to limestone ground farmed without synthetic inputs.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with Ponce Bobal. It is the grape that motivated the whole project, the variety that defined Manchuela's cooperative-wine history, and the bottle that shows what early harvesting and plot-by-plot vinification actually change in the glass. The aromatics are specific: black cherry, red cherry, dried herb, ginger, pepper. The palate is vivid and spicy, the acidity pronounced and clean, the tannins finer than Bobal's reputation prepares you for. No extraction, no weight, no oak dominance. A red wine built on freshness from a region where Bobal spent decades in cooperative tanks.

Anecdote

In 2005, Juan Antonio Ponce sat down with his father and made a proposal: stop selling to the cooperative. The family had delivered grapes from their Manchuela parcels to the local cooperative for three generations, since 1953. Nobody in the family had ever put their name on a bottle. Ponce had just come back from training across Spain under Telmo Rodríguez, and he had a figure in mind: 60,000 euros borrowed, eleven barrels, a winery started from nothing in a region where the only working model was bulk. His father agreed. That first vintage came from those eleven barrels, from Bobal that most of the market still considered too coarse to bother with. The estate now produces around 100,000 bottles a year, all under the Ponce name, all from the same plateau where the cooperative tanks used to be the only destination.

Final Word

Ponce makes a persuasive argument from an unlikely place. Manchuela is not a marquee appellation, Bobal is not a marquee grape, and the Ponce range costs less than many wines with far easier stories to tell. What the bottles give is freshness, mineral grip, and acidity from a high limestone plateau farmed without synthetic inputs by someone who bet his family's grape-growing history on the idea that the variety and the place deserved better handling. The bet has held.

Sources

• https://wineanorak.com/2024/10/02/the-beautiful-wines-of-juan-antonio-ponce-from-manchuela-spain/
• https://www.decanter.com/wine-reviews/spain/manchuela/ponce-la-xara-garnacha-manchuela-spain-2021-81465/
• https://spanishwinelover.com/winerie/ponce
• https://nosvamosdevinos.com/ponce-blanco-2022-albilla-manchuela/