Somontano vineyards autumn
— vines turning the colour of slow afternoons.
Not only on a wall.
Somontano vineyards autumn, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The Somontano vineyards roll between the Sierra de Guara and the basin of the Ebro, gold and rust by mid-October, the harvest just finished. Barbastro holds the centre, with stone-walled bodegas tucked into the folds of the land. The Pyrenees stand pale to the north. Autumn here is short, a few weeks when the rows turn before the leaves drop.
The place, in three passes.
Somontano takes its name from the Aragonese word for 'below the mountain', the country between the southern slopes of the Pyrenees and the Ebro basin in Huesca province. The wine region was granted Denominación de Origen status in 1984 and now covers roughly 4,000 hectares of vines across 43 municipalities centred on Barbastro. Elevations run from about 350 to 650 metres, high enough to give the grapes cool nights through summer. The Sierra de Guara, a karst range famous for its canyons, defines the northern edge of the appellation.
Harvest in Somontano typically runs from late August into October, with the red grapes (Tempranillo, the local Moristel, and the rarer Parraleta) picked last. The vine leaves turn through the first half of October, gold first, then a deep rust by the middle of the month, before the first hard frosts come down off the Pyrenees and strip them. The window between harvest and full leaf-fall is short, often less than three weeks, and varies year to year with the late-summer rain.
The Ruta del Vino Somontano links most of the appellation's working bodegas, with Enate, Viñas del Vero, and Bodega Pirineos open for tasting by appointment. Barbastro, the regional centre, holds the Espacio del Vino interpretive museum. The Sierra de Guara natural park, immediately north of the appellation, draws canyoning visitors from across Europe in summer; autumn is quieter and the light is longer. Zaragoza is about ninety minutes south by road, Huesca about an hour west.
