BY Sarah boucher
Who knew that Monastrell could be so elegant?!? And where the hell is Jumilla?!?
I first met the Cerdán brothers of Bodega Cerrón earlier this year at a massive wine fair in Barcelona where prominent wine journalists and sommeliers hovered around their booth like moths to a flame. It was clear that I wasn't about to discover anything under the radar, but I needed to see what the ruckus was all about.
Carlos, younger of the two brothers, led me through a lineup of wines that I found absolutely stunning. I have to admit that Jumilla was never more than a blip on my personal wine radar — located between Madrid and Murcia, the DO is mostly known for Monastrell production, where the wines produced range from fruity and simple to full-bodied, dark, brooding and, well, simple. In spite of that, the Cerrón wines blew me away with their vivacity and clarity.
Monastrell, a Spanish grape in origin and alternately known as Mourvèdre or Mataro, is found in many disparate regions, including the Southern Rhône Valley, Provence and South Australia. Despite its globe-trotting proclivities, it seems as though there’s a distinct lack of Monastrell champions — for example, who else’s wines emphasize the variety’s capabilities on numerous soil types and from a selection of unique vineyard sites? I honestly think that the Cerdán brothers’ wines are unprecedented in this way — and from an unexpected place at that!
A week after Barcelona, I met with Juan, Carlos and their mother, Juani, in the village of Fuente-Álamo for a late-afternoon coffee prior to embarking on a vineyard tour. Hopping in the passenger seat of Juan's SUV, we wove through the rugged hills, discussing wine, life, and the correct way to make paella until we reached a vineyard called El Cenajo. “They told me this was the future of our land,” he said, squinting into the low February sunlight and gesturing at the congregation of wind turbines ahead of us. As the fourth generation of the Cerdán family to farm vineyards, Juan and Carlos are continuing to prove that their land has a more distinct and exciting future than the scattered wind turbines and fields of solar panels that decorate the hills of their province, Albacete.
Jumilla in February is an alien desertscape with sandy, burnished vistas unfolding in every direction. Pine trees, vineyards and silvery olive groves border the highway, and the blue skies seem vast and endless. Rugged, forested hills protrude from the ground erratically, interspersed with fields of solar panels that look like rich, black earth from afar, glittering in the sunlight as one approaches. Bodega Cerrón is named after the hill where Fuente-Álamo is located, where the first vineyards were planted at 980m above sea level.
On a variety of steep hillsides, Juan and Carlos are making wine from 65 hectares of organically and biodynamically-farmed vineyards, comprised of more than 140 plots in the Denominación de Origen of Jumilla. In the past, winegrowers in the village of Fuente-Álamo have had difficulty ripening Monastrell due to these high-altitudes, and true to form, the majority of Cerrón’s vineyards sit between 800 and 960m. About 40ha of their vineyards are planted pie franco, meaning that the vines grow on their own roots as opposed to being grafted onto American rootstocks¹. This is a beautiful rarity that's not possible in most winegrowing regions due to phylloxera. Remarkably, the destructive little louse has an aversion to the soils here, which are poor in organic matter and incredibly high in calcareous deposits — remnants of the ancient seas which were present in the area. This is fortuitous for quality winemakers like the Cerdán family, who tend vines up to 140 years of age, resulting in wines that boast stark minerality and inimitable mid-palate tension.
However, the lack of organic matter in the soils seems like an insignificant detail compared to the serious lack of soil itself. In parts of the vineyards we visited, one can see the bedrock emerging from the soil less than a foot away from where the vines are planted. Juan used a dead vine to demonstrate how the roots actually grow out sideways, parallel to the ground, simply because there is no other option. Young vines planted in these old, shallow soils rarely survive, as they cannot find the nutrients and water that they need when interplanted with the old ones. Despite having so many hectares of vineyards, they only produce about 120 000 bottles of wine per year, due to the age of the vines, density of plantings (or a lack thereof), and pruning techniques that further favour low yields. Juan, Carlos and their sister Lucía derive much joy in tending to their vineyards where their parents continue to work alongside them, sharing their invaluable knowledge.
After the vineyard tour, Juan and I retreated to the cellar to taste countless wines from a plethora of vessels; from stainless and concrete tanks to oak barrels of various sizes (the most substantial being 8000L!). Across the range, the wines are dynamic and energetic, taut with crystalline tannins and bright fruit. They’re focussed expressions of their respective vineyard sites, admirable manifestations of their Mediterranean climate, and the most elegant iterations of Monastrell that I’ve ever tasted. Everything is hand-harvested, spontaneously fermented and bottled without fining and filtering — the only addition is a small amount of sulfur added prior to bottling.
The Stratum Wines range was created by Juan and Carlos with a goal of protecting their oldest ungrafted vineyards — most of which were previously abandoned — and showcasing the quality of the minute quantities of fruit that they yield.
2023 Bodega Cerrón ‘Remordimiento’ Tinto - $28
2022 Bodega Cerrón Stratum Wines ‘Matas Altas’ Tinto - $38
2022 Bodega Cerrón Stratum Wines ‘La Servil’ - $49
¹ American grapevines are resistant to the vine-root eating louse, phylloxera, that decimated the majority of European vineyards in the late 1800s. European Vitis Vinifera vines are grafted onto American vine roots, preventing infestation.
