Why it matters
The producer
Celler del Roure is a wine estate in Moixent, a town in the Clariano area of southwestern Valencia, built by a family that had never made wine. Pablo Calatayud trained as an agronomist and launched the project with his father in the mid-to-late 1990s; the family's business had been furniture. They started with the grapes then fashionable across Valencia: Tempranillo, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon. Those varieties are still in production. But the project they are known for is something else: the recovery of indigenous Valencian grapes that disappeared after phylloxera, fermented and aged in earthenware tinajas buried underground.
The estate now owns 60 hectares of vineyards and rents just over 25 more, all farmed organically. Organic certification came in 2017. It does not appear on the labels.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Moixent sits in the southwestern corner of Valencia province, in a zone called Clariano. The vineyards spread across four parcels: some on the northern flank of the Serra Grossa, a limestone ridge that blocks the warmest southern air, and others in the Alforins-Alcusses valley below. Average altitude across the holdings is 550 metres. That elevation matters for acidity and night-time cooling in a region where summer heat can strip freshness from red grapes.
The soils are sand, clay and limestone, very poor in organic matter. Vines on lean soils produce smaller crops with more concentrated fruit. For indigenous varieties that already tend toward lower yields, that combination pushes the wine toward depth rather than volume.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
All 85 or so hectares are farmed organically. Grapes are harvested by hand. Most wines ferment in stainless steel tanks with natural yeasts, giving clean, fruit-forward extraction without oak or lees influence.
For the estate's most significant wines, fermentation shifts to the old stone vats and selected lots move after fermentation into buried tinajas. The jars are sealed with tartaric acid rather than beeswax or resin, which keeps the vessel inert and lets the wine develop without picking up reductive character. Burial in the earth holds temperature steady through the year, a natural form of temperature control that slows maturation and preserves freshness. The Safrà bottling uses a 2,800-litre jar for six months. No new oak enters the wine at any point.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range divides between international-variety wines produced at volume and a smaller group of indigenous-variety wines that carry the estate's core argument.
The volume tier uses Tempranillo, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from the estate's larger holdings. These ferment in stainless steel and are made for early drinking: fresh, rounded reds with accessible tannin and moderate body.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Safrà is the right first bottle. It is a blend of Mandó and Arcos, partly whole-cluster-fermented with natural yeasts, aged for six months in a buried 2,800-litre earthenware tinaja. The wine opens with dark cherry, dried fig and an earthy mineral note, while dry tannins build across the middle of the palate and finish with chalky persistence. No oak. No technical smoothing. It gives a clear account of what indigenous Valencian varieties taste like when handled with care: lean, aromatic, firm and long. Buy the 2024.