Mezalocha

The church bell strikes noon and the only other sound is a tractor shifting gear somewhere beyond the stone houses. Mezalocha, population 232, doesn’t do fanfares. It does arithmetic: one resident for every 35 hectares of surrounding Garnacha vineyard, and enough silence that you can hear a cork being drawn in the bar at the far end of the single main street.

At 484 m above sea-level the village sits just high enough for the summer nights to cool quickly, a relief after the fierce midday sun that bakes the Campo de Cariñena plateau. Winters reverse the deal: keen frosts, a wind that whistles across the open fields, and the occasional dusting of snow that lingers just long enough for photographs before melting into the red clay. April and October give the gentlest weather; outside those months you need to plan around either heat or wind-chill.

Arriving without a roadmap

Ryanair and easyJet will deposit you at Zaragoza airport from Stansted or Manchester twice, sometimes three times a week. Collect a hire-car, swing onto the A-23 towards Teruel and in 45 minutes you’re off again at the ghost-quiet junction for Muel. From there the A-121 narrows to a single-track lane flanked by regimented vines; Mezalocha appears as a low limestone ridge of roofs with the church tower poking above. Public transport stops in Cariñena, 18 km away, so without wheels the village is essentially off-limits. Fill the tank before you leave the motorway – the nearest petrol is back in Muel, a 30-minute round trip once you’ve settled in.

Mobile signal dribbles away as you descend the final hill. Vodafone users keep 4G; those on EE or Three should expect 3G at best and a reminder of what “offline” actually means. Download maps, Spanish phrases and, if you’re the cautious sort, a translation of “my hire-car won’t start” before you set off.

A single street, two bars, one shop

The urban plan is refreshingly simple: Calle Mayor, a parallel back lane for deliveries, and a web of alleyways just wide enough for a donkey – the original traffic-calming scheme. Houses are built from locally quarried stone mortared with terracotta stripes; wooden eaves project far enough to throw shade onto the pavement, useful when temperatures brush 38 °C. Flowerpots are filled with geraniums because little else survives the wind.

There is no ATM. The village shop opens 09:00-13:00, reappears at 17:00, then bolts again at 20:30. Bread arrives mid-morning; if you want a baguette for supper, reserve it before noon or do without. Monday is the weekly shutdown day – even the bar with the pool table pulls its shutters down, so stock up in advance or drive to Cariñena for emergency crisps.

What Mezalocha does have is a bakery that turns out sugar-dusted huesos de santo – egg-yolk pastries the size of a toddler’s fist. British visitors tend to mutter “custard doughnut” and buy four.

Wine that costs less than the glass at home

The Campo de Cariñena DO is one of Spain’s oldest appellations, created in 1932 but rooted in Roman times. Garnacha vines were first planted here in the 15th century; today they share the soil with Tempranillo, Mazuela and the white Macabeo. Bodegas San Valero, ten minutes away by car, runs weekday tastings in English if you email ahead; weekend visits depend on whether the export manager is around. Expect to pay €6-8 for a bottle that would retail north of £15 in the UK, and don’t be surprised if the winemaker fills a plastic bidón straight from the tank for local farmers at €1.50 a litre.

Back in the village, the smaller bar keeps two reds open: one crianza poured from a label you won’t recognise, one younger joven that tastes better after the second glass. House wine is still priced by the litre at €3; they’ll bring a chilled earthenware porrón to the table if you look interested.

Walking among the vines

The tourist office doesn’t exist, so footpaths are unsigned and gloriously empty. A 6 km loop heads south past the cemetery, follows a farm track between trellises, then cuts back along the drystone boundary of a sheep field. In May the vines are luminous lime; by late September the leaves flare copper and pickers move down the rows snipping bunches into yellow plastic crates. Take water – there is no shade until the olive grove at kilometre four – and start early: by 11:00 the breeze drops and the plateau becomes a convection oven.

Serious walkers can stitch together a longer figure-of-eight that links Mezalocha with neighbouring Villanueva de Huerva, but you’ll share the track with the occasional combine harvester and, in November, hunters accompanied by lethargic podencos. A high-vis vest isn’t legally required, yet bright colours stop you being mistaken for a rabbit.

When the village throws a party

Fiestas patronales land on the closest weekend to 15 August. The population quadruples as emigrants return from Zaragoza, Madrid and, increasingly, Manchester and Geneva. A temporary bar appears in the school playground, a brass band plays pasodobles until 03:00 and Sunday lunchtime finishes with a communal paella cooked in a pan wide enough to bathe a toddler. Visitors are welcome – buy a €5 ticket from the ayuntamiento door – but don’t expect bilingual menus or printed programmes. Everything is announced over the municipal loudspeaker bolted to the church wall.

Smaller events dot the calendar: the Vendimia harvest blessing in late September, a candle-lit procession on Día de Todos los Santos, and a decidedly low-key New Year’s Eve where grapes are counted down one-by-one in the main square, wind permitting.

Where to sleep (and why you might not)

Accommodation within the village limits totals one rural house: Casa Rural El Pescador, a renovated 19th-century cottage sleeping six, patio included. Reviews on the only English-language site cluster around “spotless”, “cheap” and “no restaurants within walking distance”. The owners live in Zaragoza, so arrival has to be coordinated by WhatsApp; they’ll leave the key under a flowerpot if you’re delayed.

Alternatives lie 20 minutes away in Cariñena or Belchite, where crumbling civil-war ruins attract coach parties. Mezalocha works best as a base rather than a destination: mornings in the vineyards, afternoons among the bullet-scarred walls of Belchite, evenings back in the village once the tour buses have left.

The honest verdict

Mezalocha will not change your life. It has no Michelin-listed restaurant, no craft market, no sunset viewpoint immortalised on Instagram. What it does offer is a slice of Aragón still run on agricultural time, where the barman remembers how you take your coffee and the cost of living seems stuck in 1998. Come for the silence, the €3 wine and the realisation that “nothing to do” can be a legitimate itinerary. Bring cash, download Google Translate and fill the boot with groceries – then enjoy doing very little while the vines do all the work.