Our story

When the winery looks like a huge playground, a paradise with plenty of possibilities and places to hide, when the magic of the never-ending screw transforms thousands of bunches into a liquid that fascinates and leads you to lose all senses of time… then, it is more than likely that a child often chooses to play inside the winery rather than at the schoolyard with his friends.

Carlitos runs after the tractors, loaded with the grapes, the “big treasure”. He stares at the fruits being unloaded and investigates poking his nose into the deposits. He makes lots of questions, listens to the adults and, little by little, he discovers the details of the harvest and the winemaking.

To keep him busy, some simple tasks are assigned to him. Soon, everybody is surprised by his interest and his sensible comments.

At least, his mother can breathe. During August and September, the busiest months in a winery in Extremadura, schools are closed. Once again, between going on holiday to the seaside with the rest of the family or staying in town and helping to “supervise” the harvest, Carlitos has no doubt. His mother must give in; nothing would persuade the kid. Travelling to the vineyards, touching and pressing the grapes with his fingers, tasting them… to decide the exact point of ripeness is more than fun for the boy. Attending every day and night the harvest spectacle, the tractors coming in and out, the grapes falling into the hopper, the sounds of the magic process of fermentation becomes his favourite entertainment.

What as a child was a game, with the time has become his job, his way of living. Carlitos works hard from a very young age. He studies, investigates, experiments and passes by all the tasks of the winemaking.

For years, he learns the most important fact about winemaking: it is not an easy world, it requires daily perseverance and full-time commitment, but it is worthy. He does not regret all the hours and the sleepless nights dedicated to the fascinating dream of obtaining the best wine.

Carlitos is today Carlos Plaza, he is 47. He brings together strength and experience. He has never stopped studying, learning, observing, experimenting, and working on the elaboration process he is so passionate about. Today, he enjoys even more than during his childhood.

Bodegas Carlos Plaza

In 2009, after years working for others and expert on the international markets, he fulfilled his dream and aim in life: to elaborate and bottle his own wines, wishing that people will enjoy drinking it as much as he does while he is making it. Wines full of passion grown along the years, wines made with the same excitement and curiosity he had when he was introduced in the wine world, still being a child, but with the experience he has acquired nearly 30 years later.

New Spanish Values by Peñín Guide in 2011. A decade later, their wines speak up and the consumer is their best critic.