A town of La Alcarria (Guadalajara), in the district of Almoguera that the Order of Calatrava organised after conquering Zorita (1174). It was the head of the Mendoza family's marquisate of Mondéjar, whose convent of San Antonio (1489–1509) is among the earliest Renaissance works in Spain.
documented 1581 (Relaciones Topográficas of Philip II); family bodega since 1913; DO 1996The aloques that travelled to the Court
When in 1581 the residents of Mondéjar answered the questionnaire that Philip II sent to the towns of Castile, they boasted of their wine: they said that a great deal was harvested there, good and delicate, and that very select aloques (blends of red and white) were made and taken to Madrid for the principal people of the Court. It is the portrait of a town of La Alcarria that, a few leagues from the new capital, lived off the Mediterranean triad of wheat, wine and oil and had found its best market in supplying the Court. That courtly prestige is what the district claims today as the root of its designation of origin, which bears the town’s name.
Alive today: Mondéjar gives its name to the DO Mondéjar, made official in 1996, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in August 2026 in the town’s Plaza Mayor. Every spring the Wine Days and Tapa Fair open the local bodegas (Mariscal, the Santa María Magdalena cooperative, Tío Cayo, San Donato) to tastings and visits.