Matarraña and Teruel

Teruel has fewer people than plenty of neighbourhoods in Madrid. In the Matarraña there are villages with more houses than people, and schools that open every September with four children.

Nerea Bel, aged 29, standing among the olive trees on her farm in Calaceite

Snowy pine forest of the Sierra de Gúdar beside the village of Valdelinares

This is where we started. We buy olive farms that have no one to take them over and we look for someone to run them. Nerea came back to Calaceite. Elena and Sergio moved out from Zaragoza. Rubén stayed in Sarrión with his dog.

Elena and Sergio on an almond terrace on their farm in La Codoñera

What comes out of here is what the climate allows: empeltre oil, almonds, ham cured at 1,700 metres and black truffle. Teruel produces around 80% of the world's black truffles, though hardly anyone knows it.

Neighbours help Marta Pallarés pick olives among ancient trees with Valderrobres behind

Who works here

Nerea Bel
El Plano de Santa Bárbara · Calaceite
She came back to Calaceite in 2023 to run the farm Ramón worked for forty-two years.
Marta Pallarés y Lluís Ferràs
Mil Hiverns · Valderrobres
A teacher and an electrician who strip 35 olive trees over a thousand years old by hand every December.
Iván Garcés
La Negreta · Alcañiz
He left the factory in Zaragoza so that his parents' olive shed would not close.
Lorena y Javi Monfort
Secadero de Valdelinares · Valdelinares
They have run the highest drying house in Aragón since Tomás decided to retire.
Rubén Gil
La Carrasca de Sarrión · Sarrión
He hunts for truffles with Kira among the holm oaks Fermín planted in 1997.
Carmen y Álex Nogués
Huerta del Guadalope · Calanda
Mother and son who bag forty thousand peaches by hand every July.
Elena y Sergio
Els Tossals · La Codoñera
They swapped a seventy-square-metre flat in Zaragoza for Joaquín's almond trees.