Vinos de Madrid covers 54 municipalities in the southern half of the region, in three subzones that have little to do with one another. Arganda, on clay over limestone east of the city, grows Tempranillo and the white Malvar. Navalcarnero, on sand to the southwest, is Garnacha country. San Martín de Valdeiglesias, in the granite foothills of the Sierra de Gredos, is the one that has changed the way people think about Madrid wine.

The vineyard is ancient and was always there to supply the capital, which it did in bulk and anonymously until appellation status arrived in 1990. What followed was the rediscovery of the old Garnacha vines on the decomposed granite of Gredos, planted at 700 to 900 metres, which give pale, scented, high acid reds nothing like the warm southern style the region was assumed to make. Albillo Real, the local white, has been taken up in the same spirit, and the wines now leave the province.