Mantúa Castellana

An old white variety of the Jerez area, known as Mantúo Castellano. An IFAPA survey in Pago Burujena, one of the most traditional areas of the Jerez DO, found three vines with this name there (and two named Mantúo de Pilas), and microsatellite analysis showed that Mantúo Castellano is a synonym of Listán del Condado, a variety widely grown in the province of Huelva. The authors consider it worth requesting recognition of this synonymy, since it is the name by which it has traditionally been known in Jerez, and one of the three vines was virus-free, so a certified clone could be derived. The same study found that the vines called Mantúo de Pilas in that plot were in fact Alarije. About the Jerez mantúos in general, the author of the Jerez-Xeres-Sherry blog records that they give a greenish-golden grape, late-ripening with fairly thin skin, which Eduardo Abela (1885) considered ideal for Palo Cortado, and which was also used as a hanging grape; it was authorised by the Regulatory Council until recently. Juan Jurado (Agrícola Calcárea) included it in the eight initial micro-vinifications with which he began working recovered varieties.

Source: Rodríguez-Torres et al., “Genotypic and Sanitary Characterization of Minority Grapevine Varieties Prospected in Andalusia, Spain”, Horticulturae 9(7):759 (2023), doi:10.3390/horticulturae9070759; MacLean, “Some Sherry grapes of the past”, Jerez-Xeres-Sherry (2017).