Welcome to another addition of Iberian Links around the web! Despite Labor Day being celebrated yesterday throughout the EU, in addition to family and friends arriving from both London and Madrid, we still found a little space in the day to collect a few news bits that you might be interested in to share your thoughts on in the comments below!

The Ultimate Luxury: You’re Very Own, Vineyard in a Box!
Ever want to purchase a vineyard but were afraid that you’d kill the vines in the first year? Maybe you know a decent amount about winemaking, but have a perfectionist side of you that only wants to craft the ultimate, world-renowned wine? Well, guess what? Now is your chance! Decanter recently covered a story on La Melonera, a 200-hectare ready-made vineyard and residence development near Ronda in southern Spain and headed up by Spanish winemaker, Jose Luis Perez Verdum. Over the past five years, €22 million have been spent on restoring their cork oaks and landscaping the property so that you can purchase your own private estate for a starting cost of €3.5 million, which will buy anywhere between 5.5 hectares and 18 hectares of land. As the owner of your private estate, you can make your wines, aided not only by a technical team residing at la Melonara, but you may also harvest advice from big names like Denis Dubourdieu or Dirk van der Niepoort! Sounds rather extravagant, doesn’t it? But by the end of the day, if you’ve got a few million euros hanging out of your back pocket, why not? There is a really good reason why not. This project was launched at the …

For those of you unfamiliar with D.O. Yecla, I can assure you that it’s not something you’d say when tasting a glass of old milk, well past its suggested date of consumption. “D.O Yuck-la?!” Instead, this tiny D.O, with only 4,300 hectares under vine, is increasingly gaining in popularity abroad, as traditional winemaking is crafting high-quality wines made from the Monastrell variety.

Located in the northern eastern corner of the political region of Murcia (Spain), DO Yecla is surrounded by three other DO’s: Jumilla to the southwest, Almansa to the north and Alicante to the east. Having driven through this area only once in route to Bodegas Castano, I can tell you that the area is absolutely gorgeous, with rolling hills and sandy lime soils. Yecla is also enjoys both the temperate Mediterranean climate coming from the east and the continental climate from the central upland plateau known as La Mancha. Therefore, summers are generally long, hot and dry with mild, cool winters, and very little rainfall throughout the year.

DO Yecla is not primarily known for its whites or roses, however, although I have read that they produce some lovely examples made from Merseguera, Macabeo and Malvasia. Instead, what I am familiar with is their dark violet reds commonly made from Monastrell, showing lovely dark fruits and spices and fine silky tannins. These are typically fruity dense wines that tend to marry well with rich foods.

Today, we popped open a bottle of 2004 Cueva de los Secos from Bodegas y Vinedos del Mediterraneo. Interestingly, unbeknown to us until today, this winery is actually located in Jumilla and under the control of Bodegas Castaño, but named Bodegas y Vinedos del Mediterraneo in order to avoid confusion …