History

The Casa del Pinar was built at the end of the nineteenth century as a working farm with some 200 hectares of land planted with pines, olives, almonds and vines. There were seven houses, the principal house for the owners and various others for the estate workers.  There were barns and stables and the other great attraction for us was that it had a small bodega. We purchased it in 1988, only the second change of ownership and at that stage the property had been neglected, it was in a sorry state but the location, the views and the potential won us over, a welcome change from London.

So began the gradual process of restoration, starting with one house and moving gradually on until all the buildings were habitable. This phase was spaced out over eight years with frequent visits to check on works which were undertaken by local builders who by then had become good friends. They felt that the solution was to knock everything down and start from scratch but we had other ideas wanting to retain all that we could of the original buildings keeping the characteristic features of the area but adding essentials such as central heating and adequate bathrooms! It basically meant that we completely renovated the inside of each house whilst keeping the exteriors more or less as they were built, with thick stone walls and pan tile roofs. The upstairs section of the houses that were originally used only for storage were strengthened and bedrooms built into the spaces.  Luckily most of the original beams are in good condition, open fires have been retained, odd features such as built in cupboards remain and old materials used whenever possible. Many times we felt that the builder’s first solution was probably correct!

At this stage we started to spend more of our time in Spain, sold two of the London restaurants and decided to take things more gently, well that was the idea!

Having been close to the wine business throughout our lives and having contributed greatly to its success over the years, having an idle bodega on the property seemed a dreadful waste and in 2000 the first vintage of wine was made, a princely 6,000 bottles of Sanfir Crianza. We had planted vines shortly after buying the finca and by this stage they had begun to produce good quality fruit. The wine has been very successful and we are now producing 16,000 bottles a year, not a large amount in the general picture of the wine trade but a lot more than we could drink!

So we can now offer a choice of two houses to rent, with a total of 10 bedrooms and as much wine as you can consume in a week, all in an idyllic setting about an hours drive from the city of Valencia.