Village
Utiel is a Valencian municipality of 11,663 inhabitants, situated on the banks of the río Magro, in the comarca of Utiel-Requena, already close to the boundary with the province of Cuenca, to which it belonged until 1851; it is a municipality of predominantly Spanish-speaking status. The town stands at 735 metres above sea level, on a plain closed off to the north-east by the sierra del Negrete, whose pico del Remedio, at 1,307 metres, is the highest point in the comarca. It is the heart of the Denominación de Origen Utiel-Requena and an important communications hub, next to the A-3 Madrid-Valencia motorway, with a railway station since the late 19th century and, since December 2010, a stop on the Madrid-Levante high-speed line. Its Bodega Redonda, from 1891, is one of only three working circular wineries in Spain.
Monument
Historic wineries in the comarca linked to the Denominación de Origen Utiel-Requena, evidence of the area's winemaking tradition based on the native Bobal grape.
Activity
Utiel celebrates its main festival and fair in honour of the Virgen del Remedio, from the first weekend of September to the second following Sunday, with a procession from the sanctuary on the 8th; it also celebrates San Isidro Labrador (15 May) and San Juan Bautista (24 June).
Monument
The Bodega Redonda of Utiel is a building from 1891 built next to the Utiel-Valencia railway line, commissioned by a wine-growing family; it operated as a winery until 1957, first leased to Swiss and French merchants and later bought by the Utiel Agricultural Cooperative. Its circular hall, the work of architect Demetrio Ribes, a disciple of Eiffel, stands with no central pillar, supported by a framework of iron and wood beams and arches under a conical roof, and it preserves Valencian tiles in its old vats. It is one of Spain's four productive circular wineries, alongside those of Cariñena, Jerez and Tomelloso. It now houses the Wine Museum and, since 1986, the offices of the Regulating Council of the D.O. Utiel-Requena.
Activity
Food fair in Utiel, one of the most notable culinary events in the comarca of La Plana de Utiel-Requena.
Nature
The most populated, extensive and productive outlying village of Utiel, born in the Middle Ages around a hermitage dedicated to the Virgen de Loreto which gave rise to the settlement.
Monument
Church raised to parish status in 1795, built over the old pilgrimage hermitage of the Virgen de Loreto which gave rise to the outlying village of Las Cuevas, whose festivities are held from 6 to 10 December.
Monument
16th-century sanctuary located at an altitude of 1000 metres in the Sierra del Negrete, in the municipal district of Utiel, the destination of a pilgrimage festival for the people of the comarca.
Historical milestone
In August 1812 the troops of the captain general Pedro Villacampa defeated in the district a French column of some one thousand eight hundred men despite their numerical inferiority. Fernando VII granted the town the Cross of San Fernando in 1814.
Historical milestone
The Castilian king granted the village the charter of settlement that separated it from the jurisdiction of Requena and gave it its own district. Almost three centuries later, in 1645, Felipe IV granted it the title of city for its agricultural weight and its position on the road from Castile.
Monument
Built in the second half of the 15th century, when the town of Utiel grew under the protection of the royal road, this church in southern Gothic style has a single nave with five chapels between buttresses on each side and an eight-sided apse of five panels; its vaults, with a singular design of semicircular transverse arches instead of pointed ones, reach 23 metres in height. At the foot of the church a raised choir on saucer domes was added in 1811, and between 1564 and 1568, forty years after work began, the ashlar bell tower was built, 45.5 metres high. Its size, disproportionate to the surrounding neighbourhood, earned it the local nickname of the cathedral of the meseta.
Historical milestone
The flood of 29 October 2024 entered the town centre along the channel of the Magro, caused six deaths and left close to three hundred dwellings uninhabitable. It was the gravest episode recorded in the town and forced bridges and accesses to be rebuilt.
Food and drink
Native red variety that occupies close to eighty per cent of the comarca's vineyard and is almost exclusive to it. Of hard skin and acid must, it withstands drought and gives wines of intense colour and moderate strength, besides bled rosés.
Food and drink
Wine tourism itinerary that links wineries, cooperatives and museums of the nine municipalities of the designation. It combines visits to bobal vineyards, tastings and rural accommodation, and has made the comarca one of the most visited wine destinations in the east of the Peninsula.