La Mancha
Castilla-La Mancha is a region in central Spain to the south and east of Madrid. La Mancha is a Spanish Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) for wines, with over 190,000 ha planted to vines, and is the largest continuous vine-growing area in the world.
With just over 1 million hectares, Spain has the world's largest wine-growing area, but only ends up in third place in production volume. This is because many wine regions are sparsely planted and lack of rain makes yields low. A variety of grape varieties are grown, but only about twenty percent account for close to 80 percent of the vineyard area.
