Bodega Las Calzadas
The Wines of Bodega Las Calzadas
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Meet the Winemaker
Daniel, the 27-year-old winemaker behind Bodega Las Calzadas, makes wine the hard way. The vines are old and unproductive. White Pardilla vines are scattered amongst bush vines of red Bobal, Cencibel (Tempranillo) and a smattering of other varieties. Machines can’t maneuver their gnarly branches so everything must be done by hand. And he grows everything organically.
In the winery, nothing is added to the wine except time and a tiny amount of sulfites when bottling. All 27,000 bottles are made with native yeasts and aged in clay amphora. But while amphora may be trendy right now, Daniel isn’t one for trends. His tinajas, as they are called in Spain, are more than 150 years old. He excavated them from abandoned cellars throughout his region where winemakers have been aging their wines in these clay beasts since Roman times.
The winery, which sits about halfway between Madrid and Valencia, is as family-run as they come. Daniel makes the wine, his father tends to the vines and his mother paints the art for the labels.
