Why it matters
The producer
Marc Isart makes wine southeast of Madrid in the Arganda subzone of the Vinos de Madrid denomination, working with Tempranillo, Malvar, Airén, and Garnacha across old parcels in three villages. The bottles divide into two lines: Maldición, which carries the more ambitious and technically demanding winemaking, and Rompecepas, lighter and built for immediate drinking.
Isart's central argument is that Madrid's continental highlands can produce wines of genuine freshness, and that Malvar, a white grape considered too neutral for serious wine, rewards long skin contact in ways that bulk winemaking never discovered. The bodega is small and the range stays focused. The wines are available through international importers and retailers.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Arganda sits southeast of Madrid on clay soils under a sharp continental climate: hot summers, cold winters, and the kind of diurnal temperature shift that holds acidity in the grapes through harvest. The three villages where Isart works, Chinchón, Belmonte de Tajo, and Colmenar de Oreja, sit in rolling hill country at altitude. In the Vinos de Madrid denomination, Arganda is the easternmost and largest of the three subzones.
The name Cinco Leguas reaches back to a specific legal geography. For centuries, a royal privilege restricted wines produced within five leagues of Madrid to the capital's court, reserving a radius of rolling countryside as the crown's wine supply. Isart took that measure as the name of his project.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
All reds go through indigenous yeast fermentations, whole-cluster maceration, and extended time on skins, followed by ageing in large-format used oak. The whole-cluster approach adds a herbal lift and tannin from the stems; the used oak contributes oxygen and roundness without fresh wood flavour. Long maceration on the reds extracts colour, grip, and the kind of textured mid-palate that compensates for Madrid's tendency toward forward fruit.
For whites and skin-contact wines, Isart uses spontaneous fermentation and a period of skin contact in used 300-litre French oak barrels. The Maldición Blanco runs fifty days on Malvar skins, far longer than most skin-contact whites, before ageing in bota and oak. The Rompecepas Blanco has briefer skin contact and comes out pale and herb-edged. Across the range, every cellar decision bends toward preserving freshness and avoiding the heavy extraction that once defined the appellation.
Wines to know
The range in view
The Maldición line opens with the Maldición Blanco, a skin-contact wine from Malvar with fifty days of maceration and ageing in bota and oak. The colour is burnt amber. The grape is locally considered aromatically neutral, but fifty days of skin time changes that: the wine develops warmth and depth that run against both the variety's reputation and the usual Madrid white.
Maldición Tinto Fino is a blend of 60% Tinto Fino with 40% Malvar, aged without oak. The cross-varietal pairing is unusual: Malvar is a white grape, and its presence in a red wine lifts the colour and freshens the mid-palate. The wine is a medium-bodied red with blueberry, red berry, spice, and animal notes on the nose, fine integrated tannins, and a fresh, easy-drinking finish.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Maldición Tinto Fino is the right first bottle. It is a blend of 60% Tinto Fino with 40% Malvar, aged without oak, and it demonstrates the cross-varietal logic that runs through the whole bodega in a glass that is immediately accessible. The Malvar fraction keeps the body medium and the fruit transparent. The nose carries blueberry, red berries, spice, and a faint animal edge; the palate is fresh, the tannins integrated and quiet. There is no oak character to navigate and no extracted weight to push through.