El Casarejo

Mediterranean woodland and scrub cover more than half of El Casarejo, and red deer and wild boar hold it in strong numbers. The estate’s 7,544 hectares of Castilla-La Mancha, counted among the major hunting properties of Spain, lie inside a single 42-kilometer perimeter fence.

The Marquis of Villabrágima acquired the land in 1870, and its development as a hunting estate began in 1975. The game is held under a management plan and hunted both by stalking and in monterías, the driven hunts of the Spanish tradition. Breeding zones for stag and boar and 990 hectares of arable land used to grow feed for the game serve the sport, and an extensive network of estate roads reaches every part of the property.

The main house, of 1,100 square meters, has its own chapel, a montería hall, and two separate apartments. The old farmhouse, of 2,800 square meters, now serves as storehouse, workshop, and machinery garage; an attached building holds a cold room and a big-game processing room; and nearby stand five keepers’ houses, kennels, and a fodder shed.

Much of the rest was planted with a long view. There are 1,200 hectares of maritime and stone pine, established through agreements with the state forestry administration in 1976, now wholly the estate’s own and under an approved forestry plan; 1,132 hectares reforested with more than 300,000 cork oaks, holm oaks, and Portuguese oaks; and an olive grove and farmland besides. The sport is the estate’s first purpose; the forest, now coming of age, is its second.