Calatayud
Zaragoza · Aragon
DO Calatayud20.158inhabitants
862first mention
1798wine documented
A town in the province of Zaragoza on the river Jalón, capital of its comarca. It was born in the Islamic period around the fortress of Qal'at Ayyub, which gives the town its name; Roman Bilbilis lies on the hill of Bámbola, a few kilometres away.
First mention: According to the Andalusi geographer al-Udri (11th century), Emir Muhammad I ordered Calatayud (Qal'at Ayyub) to be fortified, along with Daroca, Somed and Furtis, in 862-863; Ibn Hayyan places this in 874-875. Its foundation in 716 by Ayyub ibn Habib is a late tradition.
The legend
Roman literary topos, 1st century (Martial); Celtiberian wine at Segeda, 2nd century BC; documented in Calatayud 1798The land of Martial and the vines of the common hills
In Calatayud it is often said that the poet Marcus Valerius Martialis, born in nearby Bilbilis (now within the municipal boundaries), was the first to praise the wines of the district in the 1st century, and the Regulatory Council itself cites this as the origin of their fame. A few kilometres away, in Celtiberian Segeda, archaeology has shown that wine was already being made before 153 BC. What is actually written and dated comes later: at the end of the 18th century the Enlightenment scholar Ignacio de Asso noted that the wine harvest had grown greatly in the Calatayud area because, in half a century, common hill land had been broken up to plant vines. By the mid-19th century vineyards covered almost a quarter of the municipality, and Garnacha withstood phylloxera, which arrived in 1903.
Alive today: Calatayud is home to the Regulatory Council of the DOP Calatayud (established in the late 1980s), focused on old high-altitude Garnacha grown on slate. Century-old family bodegas such as Agustín Cubero and Langa are still active in the municipality itself, and the town is the hub of the district's wine-tourism route.
Wineries and their wines
- Cava Reyes de Aragón Reserva Brut Nature
- Langa Classic
- Langa Mítico
- Langa Pasión
- Marco Valerio Marcial
- PI Blanco
- Pi Tinto
- Reyes de Aragón Cuvée Real
- Altaya
- Castillo del Mago Tinto
- Dominio de María
- Dominio de María Barbecho
- Stylo 4
- Stylo 8
- Unus Blanco
- Vermouth Cubero Rojo
Wine towns nearby