The Dehesa, Birthplace of the Maison

Dehesa. The word is pronounced deh-EH-sah: in Spanish, the h is silent. It comes from the Latin defensa, the defended land, enclosed and set aside for the herds. Centuries later, it has kept its meaning. The dehesa remains a guarded land, one that Europe counts among its last great reserves of biodiversity. This is where the Maison found its DNA.

A forest shaped by human hands

Between Spain and Portugal, the dehesa covers more than three and a half million hectares, two thirds of them in Spain; the Portuguese call it montado. Extremadura alone holds nearly one and a half million. The landscape recalls the savannah: oaks scattered across a sea of grass. Yet it is the work of human hands. Generation after generation, farmers have thinned the Mediterranean forest and pruned the oaks so that they bear more acorns.

Two trees reign here. The holm oak, the encina, gives the sweetest acorns. The cork oak, the alcornoque, offers its bark: every nine years the cork is lifted by axe, and the tree grows it back. Beneath their branches, Ibérico pigs share the meadow with merino sheep. Agroforestry, now hailed as a new idea, has been practised here for centuries.

A land Europe protects

This patient alliance has preserved an entire ecosystem. In 2002, UNESCO declared the dehesas of Sierra Morena, in Andalusia, a biosphere reserve: some four hundred and twenty-five thousand hectares across three natural parks. A year later, Monfragüe, in Extremadura, received the same distinction; there, dehesa covers six hectares in ten. The European Union lists the dehesas among its habitats of community interest and protects a large share of them within the Natura 2000 network.

Beneath these oaks lives wildlife grown rare elsewhere in Europe. The Iberian lynx hunts here; the Spanish imperial eagle and the cinereous vulture nest here, as does the black stork. Every winter, tens of thousands of common cranes fly down from northern Europe to feed on acorns in the dehesas of Badajoz and Cáceres.

Our dehesas, in Jerez de los Caballeros

Our pigs live in Extremadura, in the dehesas of Jerez de los Caballeros and Fuente de Cantos. Jerez owes its name to the Knights Templar, to whom the town was entrusted in the thirteenth century; Fuente de Cantos was the birthplace of Zurbarán. Around Jerez stretches one of the largest oak woodlands of the peninsula: forty-seven thousand hectares of holm and cork oaks, listed as a Natura 2000 site under the name Dehesas de Jerez. Black storks and great raptors find refuge there.

It is in this protected reserve that our pigs roam free. They wander from one oak to the next and seek the shade in the heat of the day. Nothing is hurried: here, space and time are the first ingredients.

In the beginning, an encounter

It all begins in Zarza de Montánchez, in the province of Cáceres, in the shade of a centuries-old oak. Florence Châtelet Sánchez, daughter of a family of Spanish farmers, spent part of her life in the dehesa, at her Andalusian mother’s side. She returns to reconnect with the land of her childhood. Along the way, a family of black pig breeders, one of the last bastions of Spanish artisanal excellence, brings back the almost forgotten taste of great Bellota ham.

From this encounter the Maison was born, with a promise: to carry the work of the dehesa’s small breeders to the finest tables.

The time of the montanera

The Ibérico pig is an ancient breed, black or russet, fine-legged, with a rare gift: its fat runs deep into the muscle. From autumn to the end of winter, the acorns fall; this is the montanera. The pigs feed on them freely, along with the meadow grass, and walk for hours on end. Rich in oleic acid, the acorns give the fat a melt so delicate that it beads at room temperature.

We give our pigs twenty-four to thirty-six months, so that they live through two montaneras. Their hams then age in the mountain air for up to eighty-two months. This long time brings out notes of fresh hazelnut and dried flowers over a mineral background. We read these hams like wines: our grands crus bear a vintage.

Reading the tag

In Spain, the Ibérico quality standard requires a coloured tag on every ham. It tells you how the pig was fed and how pure its breed is.

•  Black · Bellota, 100% Ibérico. The only one allowed to bear the name pata negra.
•  Red · Bellota, Ibérico: an acorn-fed pig from a crossbreed.
•  Green · Cebo de campo: raised outdoors, fed on cereals and pasture.
•  White · Cebo: farm-raised, fed on cereals.

Only the black and red tags mark a Bellota ham. To serve it properly, read our guide to tasting Bellota ham.