Bodega Cerron (Stratum Wines)

"If you want a future, you must go out from here."
We are always taught to respect your elders, and in Jumilla it is no different; when given that lesson early in life by their grandfather, Juan and Carlos Cerdan respected the point that was being made. In their early years of life in Fuente-Alamo, the highest-elevation and most remote part of Jumilla, anyone would have understood the sentiment. The town consisted of less than one thousand residents, and in reality was only built to house the farmers of the land. Grapes were all that seemed to exist here, as it was too cold, too windy and the soils too chalky for almonds or olives. Those grapes produced wine that would bring joy, but also a source of trade for other goods like rice and fruits that wouldn't grow at the altitude. Juan instructs that once there were 70 wineries in the village, and everyone within employed by one or the other - even the kids. Maybe especially the kids.

"The fields were punishment for us," Juan admits; "No holidays, no weekends. My grandparents and parents' generation, they would work from dark to dark in the fields." Of course you had to get out of there - and for decades, almost everyone else did.

With the Spanish Civil war in the mid-1930s, most of Fuente-Alamo's residents deserted the town, fleeing to France or other countries to hide. In 1954, the brothers instruct us, a new economy was installed, and the bulk wine movement was born - more volume meant more money, and there was money in distillates, too. Through that lens, it makes even less sense that the Cerdan family stayed.

Jumilla is what is known as a pre-desert, and is home to extreme weather conditions- this is no beachfront, no balmy Mediterranean climate; drought is not a concept but a lifestyle. "There are many Jumillas in Jumilla," said Carlos, and this was not the sweeter, dark-berried wines that many came to know throughout the world. But now four generations of his family had now lived in Fuente-Alamo, and with age - like fine wine - the boys came into their own knowledge and understanding of just why.

"Today," says Juan, "The winery is our psychotherapy." Between the two boys and their sister Lucia, Juan says, "The three of us are in the same direction, and have the same, shared ideas. " What they came to realize as the town shrank - 70 wineries became 4, and 2 of those are just for bulk wine - was how special these old, wrought bush vines and their vineyards truly were. Limestone in its purest, most active form colors the soils a bright white; "We chuckle when the French come to visit - they say it's like going to the moon!" At 870-980m altitude, the thin soils above the limestone consists of sands resembling a Caribbean beach, and some greenish clay. Yet it changes so much with every step that they have isolated between 160-170 plots, averaging less than half a hectare each.

By now, you're thinking these boys have lost it, and should have listened to granddad. "We're hippies, everyone thinks, but it's true," says Juan; he uses the word "heterogenous" several times, and it fits as well as it rolls off his tongue in his perfect, accented English. "Ultimately, it's just fermented juice inside a bottle," he says, genuinely humble. And one must be - these plots are entirely un-grafted, un-irrigated, and low-yielding. Nobody had much luck getting Monastrell (a.k.a. Mourvedre), their chief varietal, ripe in Fuente-Alamo, but whether through luck or knowledge, their parents had given up on chemicals and let the vines grow entirely organically 25 years ago, and the grape thrives in the family's style - crunchy dark fruits, chalky tannins, bright acidity but balanced and energetic.

Beyond the Monastrell, which makes up most of the plantings, Carlos and Juan have the oldest Grenache Noir plantings in all of Jumilla - most had been ripped out in favor of Alicante Bouchet, owing to its much darker hue being more desirable for bulk wine. The white varietal Airen was another grape largely ripped-out by their predecessors. In fact, the government provided funding to replant with more "desirable" grape varieties, as Airen was deemed to only be good for production of distillates. The family preserved half a hectare, making it an extreme rarity in Jumilla as a while, and it produces one of their most sought-after wines, Cerrico. Several other field-blended varietals are interspersed, some of which the family still is unsure of the origin.

In 2025, the trio enter their tenth vintage in charge of Bodega Cerron, to which they have added the name "Stratum Wines", in homage to the wild strata within their soils. Carlos admits that their wines evolve as their own tastes do, albeit only in gradual amounts. He and Juan travel routinely to other wine regions, particularly fascinated with the Rhone and Piedmont - Rhone at first to see what Mourvedre could become there, Piedmont later to experience other regions that likewise craft wines in a true, traditional way. Returning home to Fuente-Alamo, they are instilled with even greater passion for their own project, and those of like mind. With so much climate change around our wine world, it's a shame we collectively have taken so long to discover this version of Jumilla; it's been waiting, and only improving daily as the Cerdan family toils away in their labor of love. They didn't "go out" from there; as Carlos declares, "The people behind the terroir are the most important part of the terroir."