The Brothers, the Six Parcels & the Ancestral Fizz
In Calatayud, in the high steppe of Aragón, brothers Javier and Jesús Temprado — third-generation winegrowers — farm eight hectares of dry-land family vines up to a century old across six named parcels in Morata de Jiloca. Since 2019 they have consecrated their family's bodega to natural wine: hand-harvested, fermented with indigenous yeasts, without sulphites or any oenological products — ancestral-method whites, rosés, orange wines and pét-nats alongside parcel-by-parcel Garnacha reds. They sell them, fittingly, as Vinos Atrevidos — daring wines.
Origin — Twenty Years of Experiments Before the First Bottle
The Temprado brothers did not come to wine — they grew up inside it. Baltasar Pelegrín, their grandfather, began the family's wine business in the 1920s, and from the time Javier and Jesús were small children they were put to work in the vines and the cellar, generation by generation learning the same craft on the same land. When their father, Antonio Temprado, transferred the vineyards to the brothers in 2010, the inheritance was not just eight hectares of dry-land vines in the pagos of Morata de Jiloca — it was a century of know-how and a habit of tinkering.
For twenty years before the bodega existed, the brothers made wine for their own consumption and their family's, always experimenting, always testing the musts of these vines with a minimum of intervention in both vineyard and cellar. The results, they say, were consistently satisfying — satisfying enough that when the natural wine movement began to gather force in Spain, the brothers recognised their own experiments in it. "We felt attracted by the growing movement of natural wine, to which this bodega would consecrate itself." In September 2019, the idea became real: Bodega La Cerrada, a small bodega of small production, totally artisanal, in Calatayud.
They named their wines, fittingly, Vinos Atrevidos — daring wines — and built a cellar discipline to match: no phytosanitary products or herbicides in the vineyard; manual harvest in boxes; indigenous yeasts; no sulphites, no commercial yeasts, no clarifications; only a light coarse filtration; manual pressing, manual bottling, manual labelling. The whole enterprise answers to two brothers, a family signature, and a simple stated purpose: to make known the true flavour of the wines of this land.
The Place — Six Parcels of Extreme Secano
Every vine at La Cerrada was planted and cultivated by the family — there are no bought grapes, no rented plots — across six named parcels in the municipality of Morata de Jiloca, in the high, dry country of the DO Calatayud. The vines range from ten years old to more than a century, and the farming is secano extremo — extreme dry farming, with no irrigation at any point.
Minus Ten, Plus Forty
The continental climate of the Calatayud steppe is brutal in both directions: winters of −10°C, summers above 40°C, with a dramatic day-night thermal inversion in the month before harvest. It is that swing — scorching days building sugar, cold nights locking in acidity — that gives the zone its signature: concentrated, ripe Garnacha that still keeps a spine. The brothers call these the peculiar characteristics of their zone, in sugar, in acidity, in everything the wine will be.
The Map: Pasablanco to Pasaviejo
The six parcels read like a family atlas: Pasablanco (0.9 ha) grows the Macabeo; Rambla (1.41 ha), Pinos (1.51 ha), Olivos (2.04 ha), Pasabajo (1.21 ha) and Pasaviejo (0.56 ha) grow the Garnacha — together the roughly eight hectares of dry-land vines. Each has its own exposure, soil and age; the reds are vinified parcel by parcel, catalogued and bottled as the individual voices of the finca.
Garnacha & Macabeo
Two grapes carry the whole range. Garnacha — Aragón's great red, the backbone of DO Calatayud — from vines between ten and a hundred-plus years old, giving reds of 14–15% alcohol with dark-fruit depth and the freshness of altitude. Macabeo — the white workhorse of the northeast — from Pasablanco, pressed into the brothers' ancestral-method whites and orange experiments. No international varieties, no consultants' grapes: just what the family planted.
No Chemicals, No Herbicides
The vineyard code is absolute: no phytosanitary products, no herbicides — nothing the vines cannot supply or survive without. In a region where industrial Garnacha farming is the norm, the brothers work their century-old plots by hand, in boxes, at whatever pace eight hectares of dry-farmed bush vines demand. "Our objective is not to increase production in excess" — the vineyard comes first, the quantity second, always.
Winemaking — Sulphite-Free, Yeast-Free, Manual Everything
The La Cerrada cellar runs on a short list of prohibitions and one long list of handwork. No sulphur dioxide is used — none, at any stage. No commercial yeasts: fermentations are carried entirely by the indigenous yeasts that arrive on the skins from the vineyard. No oenological products of any kind. No fining. Only a light coarse filtration, the minimum needed to keep the wines stable enough to travel. Pressing, bottling and labelling are all done by hand.
Two winemaking traditions meet in the cellar. For the whites and rosés, the brothers work by the ancestral method — bottled during primary fermentation so the wine finishes sparkling in the bottle, unfiltered, alive: the Macabeo becomes the pét-nat Morrudo Blanco, the Garnacha rosé becomes Morrudo Rosa, and the experiments extend to orange wines and carbonic macerations. For the reds, the approach is deliberately more traditional: Garnacha of 14–15% raised in stainless-steel tanks and used oak barrels, catalogued by parcel — Rambla, Pinos, Olivos, Pasabajo and Pasaviejo each bottled as itself.
The stated objective could not be plainer: not to grow production beyond what they can control — to make wines that are a faithful reflection of the land, the climate and the vineyard of this peculiar wine zone that is Calatayud, and to make them known to the world. In a DO with a reputation for polished, technically corrected reds, the Temprado brothers are making the argument for its wild side: ancestral fizz, skin contact, parcel honesty — and a pair of brothers' hands on every bottle.
The Wines — The Daring Ones
The range divides cleanly in two: the ancestral-method wines — whites, rosés, orange and carbonic-maceration pét-nats, sold under the Morrudo name — and the parcel reds, traditional Garnacha vinified by plot in stainless steel and used barrels. All are DO Calatayud, all natural, all bottled by hand.
Morrudo Blanco
Ancestral sparkling white — 100% Macabeo, DO CalatayudThe white fizz — Macabeo from the Pasablanco parcel, bottled mid-fermentation so it finishes sparkling in the bottle. Cloudy, orchard-fruited, gently herbal, with the crunch of Calatayud's cold nights inside it: no sulphites, no added yeasts, no dosage, no filtration beyond the light coarse pass. The aperitivo of the range and the brothers' calling card — an Aragonese pét-nat from vines their family has farmed for a century. For salty snacks, goat cheese, and proving ancestral method belongs on the DO's labels, not just its history books.
Morrudo Rosa
Ancestral sparkling rosé — Garnacha, DO CalatayudThe pink fizz — Garnacha pressed pale and bottled on its fermentation, the 2020 vintage already a reference for the style in Aragón. Strawberry and mountain herb, a prickle of spritz, dry and completely unpretentious — the wine the brothers reach for when the family table is full. Made with the same absolute discipline: indigenous yeasts, zero sulphur, zero additives, hand-bottled and hand-labelled. For celebrations modest and magnificent.
1931
Natural red — Garnacha, DO CalatayudThe heritage Garnacha — the red that carries a year on its label and a century in its vines, from the family's oldest plots. Raised with restraint in stainless steel and used oak, it shows the secano signature at full strength: dark fruit and warm spice over the fresh acidity that the −10° nights built into the grape, 14–15% alcohol carried with balance. Named for the era that planted it, bottled without sulphites or makeup. For roast lamb, aged cheese, and the long version of the story.
Rambla & the Parcel Reds
Single-parcel Garnacha — Morata de Jiloca, DO CalatayudThe atlas of the finca — Garnacha vinified separately from each named parcel and bottled as itself: Rambla (1.41 ha) alongside Pinos, Olivos, Pasabajo and Pasaviejo. Same variety, same family hands, six different conversations between slope, soil and vine age — from ten-year-old plants to centenarians. Catalogued by parcel in cellar and bottle, these are the wines that let a drinker walk the family's six pagos without leaving the table. Traditional vinification, minimal intervention, nothing added but attention.
Orange & Carbonic Experiments
Experimental line — ancestral method, DO CalatayudThe cheek of the house — beyond the core range, the brothers vinify orange wines by extended skin maceration and carbonic-maceration pét-nats, the ancestral bottle carrying experiments their grandfather would recognise as old and their neighbours recognise as new. Small lots, variable by vintage, gone when they're gone — the truest meaning of Vinos Atrevidos. For the curious, the converted, and anyone who thinks Calatayud only makes one kind of wine.
Legacy — A Century of Family Hands on Calatayud's Wild Side
Bodega La Cerrada matters because it connects three layers of Calatayud wine that rarely touch: the century-old family smallholding begun by Baltasar Pelegrín in the 1920s; the modern natural wine movement the brothers recognised as their own two decades of experiments; and the appellation itself, which gets from them something it badly needs — a version of Garnacha that speaks parcel by parcel, without polish or apology. In a DO built on volume and technical correction, two brothers hand-bottling ancestral pét-nats from their grandmother's parcels are quietly expanding what the zone is allowed to be.
The legacy is familial and unusually honest about it. This is not a story of city escapees buying vines; it is a family that never left — grandfather to father to sons, vines transferred in 2010, twenty years of family wine before the first commercial bottle, six parcels named like members of the household. The brothers describe themselves plainly: two brothers, with experience and winery tradition, third generation. The bodega's whole ethic — small production, total control, manual everything — is the ethic of a family that intends to be farming these same pagos when the vines turn two hundred.
The legacy is also technical and philosophical: a working demonstration that a DO Calatayud estate can ferment with zero sulphites and zero purchased yeasts across an entire range — sparkling, white, rosé, orange and red — and not merely survive but consecrate itself to it. Every bottle is an argument that the true flavour of this land does not need correction. Their declared aim — wines that faithfully reflect the land, the climate and the vineyards of this peculiar zone, and to make them known to the world — is the oldest ambition in wine, expressed with third-generation modesty and first-generation daring.
And the legacy is scale as a value. Eight hectares, six parcels, a stated refusal to grow beyond control: in an era of wine-industry consolidation, the Temprados have chosen the size at which a family can still know every vine. Vinos Atrevidos — daring wines — turns out to be the least daring thing about them. The daring part is staying small, staying natural, and staying exactly where their grandfather started.