The Vineyards
The Alqueria de Morayma vineyards are at an altitude of 1.000.metres, between two mountain ranges, the south face of the Sierra Nevada and the northern flanks of the Contraviesa. Here we have two hectares of red wine grapes, and a little lower down the white wine grape Vigiriega which is native to the Alpujarra.
The Winery and Organic Production
THE WINERY: The winery at the Alqueria has been designed, built, and equipped specifically for the preparation of organic wines – grapes from our own vineyards, tended by hand, aided by the most up to date technological equipment currently available.
Wines
Our production is small, 7,000 bottles of red wine and 2,000 bottles of white wine. These wines are not marketed outside the Alqueria. We have a low output, but high quality product – a ‘Vigiriego’ white wine and a red wine (matured for 12 months in the barrel).
Museum
The winery is also a museum of wine making. The walls are decorated with friezes of specially commissioned, hand painted tiles that illustrate every stage of wine production from earliest times to the present day. The museum also has numerous displays of tools and equipment, containers, books, and posters all devoted to wine making ancient and modern.
Similarly, wall friezes of hand painted tiles graphically explain the olive pressing process. One wall is covered with tiles that depict and name all the wild flowers found at the Alqueria – both beautiful and instructive. The tiles were made at oneof the last still functioning tile factories in the Albaicin in Granada where the resident artist painstakingly copied by hand from photographs taken at the Alqueria.
The Olive Press
The Olive Groves
The oldest olive trees at the Alqueria grow on terraces below the main buildings, near the Guadalfeo river. There is a designated pathway running from the Olive Press down through the groves, sometimes wheat is cultivated among the trees.
Wine Route – Contraviesa
Jesus Barquin and Francisco Rivas tell us something of the characteristics of Alpujarran wines: “They share certain significant factors:
Their production is undertaken by Granadinos whose rural background and ancestry are steeped in family tradition.
The owners have direct control over the cultivation of their vineyards and production in their winerys.
They also share the fact that that their vineyards are all situated at high altitude (1.000. m.) on steep shaley slopes and exposed to the influence of the Mediterranean, just 10.K. distant.”