Modern Setenil begins in 1484, relatively late in the Christian Reconquest, when the Christian armies expelled its Moorish, Granada-led Nasrid rulers. It took the Christians fifteen days to expel the Moors from the (nowadays ruined) castillo, castle, at the top of the town. The town name is believed to have been taken from the Roman Latin phrase "septem nihil", "seven times no", a phrase possibly linked to earlier invasions or skirmishes. The full moniker Setenil de las Bodegas dates from the 15th century, when its new, Christian, rulers developed an agricultural base of olives, almonds and vineyards. The first two still flourish on the hills and rooftops of Setenil, but its wine trade was wiped out by the phylloxera insect infestation of the 1860s, which effectively destroyed most European vine stocks.