In July every peach is wrapped in a paper bag on the tree.
Carmen Nogués has spent thirty-six years bagging peaches in her father's orchard by the Guadalope. Every July she slips a paper bag over each fruit by hand. That comes to about forty thousand.
Her son Álex is twenty-four and has a degree in food technology from Teruel. Preserving the peaches that are too small to sell as table fruit was his idea. Before, they went for juice at next to nothing.
The designation covers the fresh fruit, not the preserve. So the jar carries no seal, even though every peach met its rules on the tree. Álex says he would rather explain that than wear a medal that is not his.
