At A Glance
- **Country:** Spain
- **Region:** Sierra de Gredos, west of Madrid
- **Grape:** Garnacha Tinta
- **Style:** High-altitude red wine, fresh and fruit-forward
- **Wine:** 30.000 Maravedíes, 100% Garnacha Tinta
- **Group:** Alma Carraovejas (since 2021)
- **Winemaker:** Javier Blasco
The Producer
Bodega Marañones makes Garnacha Tinta from granite soils in the Sierra de Gredos, the mountain range that runs west of Madrid toward the Portuguese border. The bodega sits at the quieter end of a regional argument: that Garnacha, when grown at altitude on poor granite rather than in warmer, lower-lying Spanish terrain, produces wines that are lighter in colour, fresher in acidity, and far less jammy than most drinkers expect from the grape.
In 2021, the Alma Carraovejas group acquired the bodega. Javier Blasco took over winemaking from Fernando García Alonso, who had founded the estate and shaped its house direction from the beginning. García Alonso was among the winemakers who worked with high-altitude Garnacha in the early 2000s, a loose movement that treated high-altitude Garnacha as a vehicle for freshness rather than extraction. Blasco has continued under that framing. The 30.000 Maravedíes is characterised by the estate itself as the fruitiest and most delicate expression of Grenache from the Gredos.
Place
The Sierra de Gredos is a granite mountain range. Vineyards here sit at 700 to 900 metres above sea level, which pushes ripening later into the season and keeps the fruit cooler through the growing period. This produces Garnacha with lower potential alcohol, brighter acidity, and a linear rather than rounded mouthfeel. The granite soils drain freely and hold little water, which stresses the vine and concentrates flavour without adding the weight that clay or alluvial soils produce.
Spain's better-known Garnacha regions, Priorat in Catalonia or the old-vine zones of Aragon, sit at lower elevations in warmer, drier microclimates. The wines from those areas tend toward deep colour, ripe dark fruit, and pronounced tannin. Gredos Garnacha moves in the opposite direction: pale red, cool-fruited, with an acidity that holds the wine upright through the finish. The Sierra de Gredos has no formal DOC of its own for red wines of this kind, and bottles from Marañones typically carry the Vinos de Madrid designation.
Soil And Site
Granite is the soil constant at Marañones. It weathers slowly into coarse, sandy decomposed rock that drains without retaining much organic matter. Vines on granite tend to produce small berries with concentrated juice and thin skins, which translates into pale, transparent-looking reds with more perfume than pigment. The combination of granite, altitude, and old bush vines creates the base conditions for the style the bodega works toward: lightness, aromatic lift, and a mineral thread through the finish.
Story
The early 2000s brought a generation of Spanish winemakers to the Gredos with a shared instinct: that old Garnacha vines on granite at altitude were being overlooked. Fernando García Alonso was part of that cohort. He founded Bodega Marañones to work with those vines, and the house direction he set, freshness first, granite character as the dominant terroir signal, shaped the estate's approach through its early years.
That direction was tested in 2021 when the Alma Carraovejas group bought the bodega. Alma Carraovejas is a Castile-based wine group with a track record of acquiring well-positioned Spanish estates. Javier Blasco assumed the winemaking role. The handover carried an implicit question about continuity: whether a group acquisition and a new winemaker would reshape a bodega built on a precise stylistic premise. The 30.000 Maravedíes continued under the same characterisation the estate had used before the sale: the fruitiest and most delicate Garnacha from Gredos, shaped by freshness. The approach did not change.
Vineyards And Cellar
The vines at Marañones are old bush vines trained without wire support, a traditional Gredos method that limits yield and concentrates the fruit. Bush-trained vines in high-altitude granite produce small clusters with thicker skin-to-juice ratios, giving the wine its pale colour and its aromatic intensity without bulk.
In the cellar, the 30.000 Maravedíes is aged for 15 months on its own lees in a combination of large-format foudres, French oak barrels, and concrete vats. Each vessel does different work. Foudres allow slow, gentle oxygen exchange without adding wood flavour, which builds texture and roundness in the mid-palate. French oak barrels contribute a faint spice integration. Concrete preserves fruit freshness and keeps the wine's primary aromatic profile intact. Lees contact over 15 months adds weight and a creamy texture to what would otherwise be a very lean, high-acid wine. The mixed vessel approach is a deliberate choice to layer texture rather than impose a single oak signature across the wine.
Wines
The confirmed wine in the Marañones range is 30.000 Maravedíes, a 100% Garnacha Tinta aged 15 months on lees across foudres, French oak, and concrete. It is the wine around which the estate's approach is built.
The wine is positioned as the fruitiest and most delicate expression of Garnacha from the Gredos. In sensory terms, the wine has pale red colour, red cherry and pomegranate fruit rather than dark plum or blackberry, firm but not heavy tannin, and a freshness through the acidity that keeps the fruit lively rather than ripe or jammy. The lees ageing adds a slight creaminess to the mouthfeel without obscuring that freshness. The oak vessels contribute texture and faint spice but do not leave a dominant wood mark on the wine.
This is not a blockbuster style. It is a wine built on aromatic lift, acid-driven freshness, and a granite-derived mineral quality that runs through the finish rather than fading behind fruit.
In The Glass
The 30.000 Maravedíes opens with red cherry, dried rose petal, and a faint mineral lift that reads as stone or wet granite. The fruit is cool-toned rather than ripe, closer to pomegranate and raspberry than to dark berry. On the palate, the entry is light-bodied and focused, with a firm acidity that keeps the wine upright. The tannins are present but fine-grained, softened by the lees contact without becoming heavy. The mid-palate has a creamy texture from the extended lees ageing, which sits behind the fruit rather than on top of it. The finish is long and mineral, with a saline or chalky quality that is a common thread in Gredos reds grown on decomposed granite. The wine does not open up with heat; it stays taut and cool through its length.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with 30.000 Maravedíes. It is the only confirmed wine in the range and the clearest expression of what the estate is doing: old-vine Garnacha on granite at altitude, aged long enough on its lees to build texture, but held firmly in the fresh and delicate register the bodega has always aimed for. The wine is pale red, aromatic, and lighter in body than most Spanish reds. Serve it slightly cool. It will make the granite and the altitude legible in the glass before the first sip is finished.
Anecdote
In 2021, the Alma Carraovejas group bought Bodega Marañones and Javier Blasco walked into a cellar that Fernando García Alonso had shaped around one overriding idea: that the Gredos produced a Garnacha unlike any other in Spain, and that the right response was to stay out of its way. García Alonso had been one of the early voices in a loose generation of winemakers who came to these granite mountains west of Madrid in the 2000s and started farming old vines at altitude. He had spent years pointing his cellar work toward freshness. Blasco, arriving with a new ownership group behind him, inherited both the vines and the stylistic premise. The 30.000 Maravedíes, which the estate describes as the fruitiest and most delicate Grenache from Gredos, went on being characterised in exactly those terms after the handover. The acquisition changed the ownership. The granite did not change.
Final Word
Bodega Marañones makes Garnacha Tinta from granite soils in the Sierra de Gredos. The 30.000 Maravedíes is the bodega in a bottle: pale, fresh, mineral, and built on a regional argument about what the Gredos produces when the farming is careful and the cellar stays quiet. Under the Alma Carraovejas group and Javier Blasco, that argument has continued without revision.