Fire and wine for the Feast of St John
Alan Nance recounts the significance of midsummer fires in Catalonia, and uncorks some fine local wines to celebrate the occasion.
Saint John's Eve, 23 June, has for centuries been associated with the lighting of bonfires and communal festivities, and celebrations of this kind are widespread across Spain. It is a time of conviviality, of eating and drinking in the company of others, and in Catalonia, where I live, it is a day that has acquired profound cultural significance. So before I tell you about some fine Catalan wines that I drank this year to mark midsummer, let me give you the backstory.
June 1955. In the small town of Arles-sur-Tech at the foot of the French Pyrenees, Francesc Pujades looks south towards the Canigó Massif. His life has been lived in the shadow of these hills, and he has walked them into his bones. He has lost count of the number of times he has climbed the Canigó itself.
The Canigó Massif with Arles-sur-Tech in the foreground (photo courtesy of: https://www.visit-canigo.com/)
On the other side of the Massif lies Catalonia. Like many in the Roussillon borderlands, Francesc can trace a family line across the mountains, back to a time before they became a political as well as a topographical frontier. He knows the history. He knows that the Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed in 1659, saw the Spanish crown cede control of Northern Catalonia to France, in exchange for which Louis XIV renounced his claim to the southern lands, the County of Barcelona. He knows too that a little over three centuries later, the Catalan poet Jacint Verdaguer wrote his epic foundational poem of Catalonia, Canigó, in which the medieval war between Christians and Saracens for control of the Iberian Peninsula is the backdrop to a tragic tale of forbidden love drawn from folk mythology.
Gentil, the son of a nobleman, falls in love with a shepherd girl, Griselda, during the celebrations to mark the Feast of St John. His father disapproves, and Gentil, who that very day has been made a knight, is dispatched to defend a strategic castle on the northern side of the Pyrenees. There, one night, as he gazes up at the snow-capped peak of the Canigó, his squire tells him that what appears to be snow are in fact the ermine cloaks of the mountain faeries draped over the mountain. Legend has it, the squire says, that any mortal who acquires such a cloak may have whatever he most desires. Dreaming of Griselda loved and lost, Gentil abandons his guard post and heads for the summit.
Francesc Pujades gazes up at the Canigó and begins to dream. Tomorrow, he thinks, is the 24th, the Feast of St John. He knows the centuries-old tradition whereby vigil fires are lit to mark this day in June. A cleansing of spirits, a celebration of light as we turn once more toward winter. He has often helped with the building of these St John’s fires in Arles-sur-Tech, but this year, he decides, he will go his own way. He gathers a bundle of firewood and sets off towards the mountain. By early evening he is at the summit, and as night begins to fall he lights a bonfire whose flicker can be seen across the Roussillon plain. The following year he does the same, and this time the towns and villages below wait for the mountaintop signal before lighting their own St John’s fires.
An idea had been kindled in the wider imagination. In the years that followed, the flame lit at the summit, La Flama del Canigó, became a mother flame used to light countless other torches that were then relayed to towns across the Catalan-speaking lands. At first this chain of belonging was limited to the French side of the mountain, but in 1966 it stretched across the border into Franco’s Spain and was used to light a St John’s fire in the town of Vic, just 70 kilometres north of the Catalan capital, Barcelona. Nine years later the dictator was dead, and a ritual of belonging gained new life.
The choreography of the event today is a work of communal imagination. On the Sunday before the Feast of St John, small bundles of firewood are carried to the summit of the Canigó by volunteers from towns across Catalonia. Each is tied with a ribbon, striped yellow and red as the Catalan flag and bearing the name of its place of origin: Vinaròs, Lleida, Perpignan, the length and breadth of the land. Like wishing trees, some of the bundles have stuffed within them little notes, the handwritten desires of those who have laid them on the mountain. There they remain in readiness for the fire to come.
The unlit bonfire at the summit of the Canigó (photo courtesy of: https://www.feec.cat/)
El Castillet, in Perpignan, was once a fortified gate to the medieval city, but it is now home to the Catalan Museum of Folk Arts and Traditions, and there, housed within a storm lantern, the mother flame – La Flama del Canigó – has burned continuously since 1965. Each year, on the evening of 22 June, the lantern is carried to the mountain summit, where, at midnight, it becomes the source that ignites the waiting bundles. Those in attendance lower their torches to the fire, and once lit, hold them aloft as they descend the mountain.
Lighting of torches at the summit of the Canigó (source: https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nit_de_Sant_Joan)
By dawn, La Flama is already being relayed on foot, by bike, by car to hundreds of towns across the Catalan-speaking lands. A thousand fires will burn that evening, each traceable to a single source.
I was not in the town square this year to witness the arrival of La Flama, for I was busy in the kitchen preparing for the arrival of friends. And needless to say, I had lined up what proved to be a fine selection of Catalan wines. All four come from vineyards that are farmed organically (although most go further and work according to the principles of biodynamically and/or regenerative agriculture), fermentation is always with native yeasts, and only one (the Finca L'Argatà) bears a DO label.
Nuria Renom Donna 2022
This pét-nat is made entirely from Chardonnay planted in 1984 on limestone soils in the Alt Penedès region. Fermentation begins in used French oak barrels, and then continues in bottle (as per the ancestral method of making sparkling wines). The wine (12% ABV) is then disgorged after ten months and sealed with a crown cap. As with all of Nuria's wines, no sulfites are added at any point. Aromas of orchard fruit, stone and herbs, a little saline kick on the palate, and a refreshing lift from the fine bubbles. Pure vitality in a glass.
€25.80 from Cuvée 3000.
El Jardí dels Sentits Misteriós 2022
My first outing with the wines made by Blanca Ozcáriz, and what a delight this was. Xarel·lo from 70-year-old vines planted on calcareous soils in woodland near to the village of Lavern (Penedès). This is aged in amphora and oak barrels and is bottled unfiltered and unsulfited. Cloudy gold in the glass and enlivening on the palate, the white fruit flavours you expect to encounter with the variety being delicately encased within a mineral, saline shell. At just 11.5% ABV, the challenge was not to down the bottle in one fell swoop. A perfect wine for a hot summer evening. With just 1403 bottles produced, this is a rara avis in the wild.
I purchased my bottle through 12 DO's, a wine shop and distributor in Vilanova i la Geltrú. Email or phone them to check for availability.
Joan D'Anguera Finca L'Argatà 2021
100% Garnacha Tinta (referred to locally as Granatxa) from 30-50-year-old vines close to the village of Darmós in the Montsant region. Whole bunch fermentation in concrete tanks, followed by 24 months in used oak barrels. Bottled unfined and unfiltered.
A truly special wine that glistens like a pale ruby in the glass. Complex aromas of red fruit laced with scrubland herbs (thyme, rosemary), undercut by a subtle sweetness that evokes something purple, like lavender or violet. Ethereal on the palate, there's also quite a bit of heat from the alcohol (it's 14.5% ABV), and that is the only aspect that, for my taste, I would like to see turned down a notch. A wine to savour slowly with food and friends across an evening.
Their website (which is available in English) is worth checking out for more background on the history of the estate and their winemaking.
€35.30 from Enterwine.
Descregut Memòria Brut Nature 2018
Descregut is one of the fifteen wineries that currently make up the Corpinnat collective, grower–producers dedicated to making high-quality sparkling wines within the Penedès region. The Memòria is a blend of Xarel·lo (65%) and Macabeu from vines 40+ years old. This 2018 vintage was bottled in April 2019 and only disgorged a couple of months ago, which translates to a whopping 72 months of lees aging. There are hints of that process on the nose, which has an appealing nuttiness, but on the palate it remains fresh to the end, with notes of white and citrus fruit cut through with bitter herbs. A finely textured and moreish sparkler.
€24.25 from Decántalo.