Life in Culebrón

Now, anyone who has ever heard of Pinoso will know it is famed for wine (Pinoso’s bodega is the biggest producer of organic wine in the province), marble (we have the largest marble quarry in Europe), shoemaking (now largely a thing of the past), and Mediterranean agricultural products (Frutos Secos Mañán is one of the largest almond producers and processors in Europe). Not much is said about salt. Yet Pinoso is a major salt producer. Unfortunately, the town sees little of that wealth: the salt deposit is owned by the Spanish Treasury (Hacienda), and the profits from working it go to a French company within the Salins Group. We’re friendly with wine. Well, we’re members of the local "Amigos del Vino" here in Pinoso. We usually go on trips out in a charabanc which have some passing association with wine. If possible, we like to drink some. But last week we went on a trip with a different focus. We followed the route of that salt from deep inside our emblematic hill down to the...

There's a hill to the East of Pinoso. It's a rounded, dome like, formation which stands about 320 metres above the surrounding terrain though its summit is 890 metres above sea level. If you know Pinoso it's the hill with a couple of telecoms masts near it's summit and you can see it from almost everywhere in town. It's called Monte Cabeço and it's a sort of visual reference point for most Pinosoeros. Travelling home, with Spaniards, on a coach from Madrid years and years ago the man behind me tapped me on the shoulder when el Cabeço came into view, "Look," he said, "It's our mountain". One of the wines produced by the local Pinoso Bodega is named for the hill, it's called Diapiro and diapiro is the Spanish equivalent of the technical word, diapir in English, to describe the geological phenomenon where the light, and plastic, salt has been squeezed up through the harder, surrounding rock. The salt in Monte Cabeço has been mined for y...