But here at Virgen de las Viñas, or Virgin of the Vineyards, the biggest producer in Spain`s largest wine region, production comes in the shape of giant steel vats and hoses connected to tank trucks. Employees work three shifts to keep the place running 24 hours a day.

`We don`t elaborate wine here — we produce wine,` said Isidro Rodríguez, the company`s technical director. `This is really a factory.`

This is the unromantic side of winemaking in the region of Castile-La Mancha, which accounts for half of Spain`s wine production. Most of it is sold in bulk and transported abroad, where it can be mixed with other wines and even re-exported.

While Spain`s producers churned out vast quantities of wine, some began to reconsider whether sheer volume was the best strategy, as overproduction sank both prices and the country`s wine reputation.

`Castile-La Mancha ticks all the boxes as a bulk agricultural region, but perhaps not all of them for higher quality wine,` said Miguel Ángel Benito, a sommelier and technical director of a wine museum in Peñafiel, in Castile and León, another wine region.

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