The roman wynery of "El Peral". Presentation and first results.
Tomás Torres González, Miguel Angel Hervás, Diego Lucendo,Luis Alejandro García, Manuel Melero (1), Domingo Fernández, Yolanda Peña Cervantes (2), Julián Vélez (3)
- Abstract
- Between July and August 2020, an emergency archaeological intervention was carried out as a result of the roundabout`s construction works to allow a better access through the El Peral site to the city of Valdepeñas (Ciudad Real). The archaeological allowed the discovery more than 1500 m² of buildings belonging to a rural complex of some importance. The rural complex consisted of several residential buildings and wine production, dated, in the current state of research, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD. C.
Ignoring the possible Iberian structures, the oldest building was built in the middle of the 1st century AD. It is a large quadrangular building with a central courtyard. It has been excavated 350 m², barely a third of its total surface. Later on, sometimes in the 3rd or 4th centuries AD, the villa was extended to the northwest with the construction of a rectangular winery with a northeast-southwest orientation and a area of 340 m². Also, at the same date, another building was built to the south with a current surface area of 240 m² without having found its limits.
The winery appears on the north side of the complex. It has an area 340 m², with a rectangular floor plan and a northeast-southwest orientation. The winery joins the structures of the high-imperial villa at its southeast corner. The winery walls were built with masonry based on interlocked limestone and plastered with a mortar very rich in lime.
This winery (torcularium vinícola) features an internal articulation that is precisely adapted to the winemaking cycle. It has two perfectly defined environments: one of them linked to the crushing-pressing of the grape, to the southwest, and the other to the wine fermentation process, to the northeast.
The archaeological intervention carried out has made it possible to save from destruction one of the most important rural complexes from the Roman period existing in Castilla-La Mancha and a unique complex in the province of Ciudad Real. It is very rare to document a winery in a complete way, with all the structures related to wine production, as it has happened in El Peral. Its dimensions make it one of the largest late-Roman wine facilities excavated so far in Hispania and the largest and most complete of the Roman wineries excavated so far in Castilla La-Mancha.
It presents an exceptional state of conservation. All the structures are perfectly recognizable, such as the cella vinaria, the calcatorium and the lacus, with a minimum capacity of 4500 liters. The dimensions of the cella vinaria allow us to conclude that we are facing a rural settlement with a very high capacity for wine production, in line with the current wine production capacity of the region.
The discovery of the “El Peral’s winery allows to vindicate the importance of wine production in the region already in Roman times which was unknown. Its recovery would make it possible to link the millenary tradition of this city with wine, as this is the first and oldest direct evidence of wine production in Valdepeñas and the first clear evidence of Roman wine production in the province of Ciudad Real
- Presented by
- Tomas Torres González <tomastorresgonzalez@gmail.com>
- Institution
- 1. Baraka Arqueologos S.L. - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distnacia (UNED - 3. Ayuntamiento de Valdepeñas
- Keywords
- Wynery, vyne making, roman, hispania