Story No. 1. Peaches Familia Esteve Ràfols

"To carry an entire garden within you,

to savor not only the skin of the fruit, but also its shade,

not only its sweetness, but the days that made it..."

From a poem by Li-Young Lee

Those lines found me later that evening, after I had returned home with a crate of peaches.

By then, the sun had already slipped behind the hills of the Penedès, and my kitchen was filled with the rich fragrance of ripe fruit. The peaches rested on the table, filling the room with the scent of summer.

Suddenly, it felt as though I had brought home more than just the harvest. I had carried back a fragment of that day itself—the sun-scorched earth, the song of cicadas, the shade of old trees, and the conversation that had begun among the orchards near the small village of Cantallops.

Cantallops is a tiny village in the municipality of Subirats, surrounded by vineyards and fruit orchards. They say its name means "the place where wolves sing." The wolves are long gone, but the air is still alive with other sounds—the rustle of leaves, birdsong, and the steady hum of farm machinery.

The road ends beside a cluster of farm buildings. Beneath the shade of a large tree stands a tractor with a trailer piled high with plastic crates. Some are already overflowing with peaches; others are still waiting for their turn.

This is where I meet Jordi Esteve Ràfols.

We introduce ourselves, and almost immediately our conversation turns to his work.

Every summer, the small village of Sant Pau d'Ordal becomes the gastronomic capital of the Penedès peach.

People come here from Barcelona and nearby towns to buy juicy, sun-ripened fruit directly from the farmers.

Today, it is hard to imagine the Penedès without peaches. They seem as much a part of the landscape as the vineyards, olive groves, and almond trees. Yet the orchards that have become such a familiar sight are a relatively recent addition, first appearing at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The story of the Esteve Ràfols family has always been rooted in the land. For generations, they cultivated vineyards, but in the 1960s the family made a life-changing decision to turn to fruit growing.

We stroll slowly between the rows of trees. Some of the branches are already bending under the weight of the fruit, and it becomes immediately clear why harvesting here can never be a mechanical task. Peaches do not tolerate rough handling. Every single fruit is picked by hand, gently twisted around its stem before being lifted from the branch.

We are used to seeing only the final scene of this story—a wooden crate at the market, neatly filled with perfectly arranged peaches.

Everything that comes before usually remains unseen.

I want to understand what an ordinary day looks like for a fruit grower, and Jordi is happy to walk me through his daily routine.

Summer is the season when the family's entire life revolves around the harvest. The day begins no later than six in the morning.

Before the sun has a chance to heat the air, all the work takes place in the orchard. The peaches are picked entirely by hand, each one harvested at the precise moment it reaches perfect ripeness.

After lunch, the work moves to the packing house. There, the fruit is sorted, carefully inspected for quality, gently packed into crates, and prepared for delivery to the market and the family's own shop. Day after day, the routine repeats itself until the very last variety has been harvested. It is demanding, physical work—performed every single day.

While preparing for our meeting, I spent time exploring Catalonia's historical archives and, to my surprise, came across several criminal cases involving peach theft. Apparently, it was once a fairly common occurrence for entire harvests to disappear straight from the orchards. Jordi confirms that such incidents really did happen, although on a much larger scale in the past.

"Back then, we had to take turns with our neighbors guarding the orchards at night. A good harvest has always attracted people looking to make easy money."

Today, he says, peaches face different enemies: insects, wild boars that tear up the ground in search of food and damage the roots of young trees, and increasingly unpredictable weather, where a single hailstorm or a prolonged heatwave can wipe out the work of an entire year.

But what worries Jordi most is something else.

"Who will carry this on?"

It is not the first time I have heard this question from a Catalan farmer. More and more young people are choosing professions that have nothing to do with the land. An office job or a career behind a computer screen seems far more predictable—and far more comfortable—than a life shaped by the whims of nature.

I ask Jordi whether they eat their own peaches.

He smiles.

"Of course! We eat them every day."

Most often, right here in the orchard while we're working. Sometimes the best lunch is nothing more than a few quiet minutes in the shade of a tree and a peach picked straight from the branch. At home, we add them to salads and preserve them for winter, but honestly, we usually just eat them fresh. A truly good peach doesn't need anything else.

Our conversation turns to peach varieties. Even before we met, I had been curious about the name wine peach. Was there really a special variety somehow connected with grapes?

Before I can finish my question, Jordi's brother, Joan, who has been picking peaches nearby all this time, joins the conversation.

"Vero, vineyards produce grapes. Wine peach is a traditional name, not a botanical one."

As it turns out, there is no officially recognized variety called wine peach. The actual cultivars have entirely different names. The term simply refers to a yellow-fleshed peach that was traditionally grown among the vineyards.

Just before I leave, I ask Jordi a question that I try to ask every producer I meet.

"If you had to describe your work in just one word, which word would you choose?"

He doesn't answer right away. For a few moments, he stands in silence, looking across the orchard as though searching for the answer among the trees.

Then he says:

"Il·lusió."

There are words that resist literal translation. The Catalan word il·lusió is one of them. It carries, all at once, a sense of hope, joyful anticipation, inspiration, and a deep passion for what you do.

One last question.

"Jordi, what do peaches mean to you?"

He laughs.

"My daughter sometimes says I think about peaches more than I think about my own children. Of course, that's not true. But there's a grain of truth in what she says. I take care of them. I worry about them. They hold my past and my hopes for the future. Peaches are part of our family. They are part of our story."

As we say goodbye, Jordi fills an entire bag with large, velvety peaches for me to take home. In return, I give him a postcard featuring a watercolor illustration of the Sant Pau d'Ordal peach market, created especially for his family by an artist.

That evening, I found myself admiring the peaches Jordi had given me and thinking about the people whose hands had brought them into being.

It was then that I came across the words of the American poet Li-Young Lee:

"...not only its sweetness, but the days that made it."

Perhaps that is the true value of a farmer's work.

When we bring home a piece of fruit, we bring home far more than its sweetness.

We carry with it the days that were lived, the care of generations, and the story of a family that, one day, decided to plant an orchard.

Practical Information

Where to Taste the Peaches of Familia Esteve Ràfols

The most authentic way to discover them is to visit the summer peach market in Sant Pau d'Ordal.

Every Saturday and Sunday throughout the season, farmers from across the Penedès gather here, each standing behind a stall filled with fruit they have grown with their own hands. It's a rare opportunity not only to taste exceptional peaches, but also to meet the people behind the harvest and hear the stories that make each piece of fruit so much more than produce.

If you would like to see the farm for yourself, stop by the small family-run shop of Familia Esteve Ràfols in Cantallops.

The shelves reflect the rhythm of the seasons. Here you'll find only fruit grown on the family's own land: the celebrated Ordal peaches, along with apricots, plums, cherries, grapes, melons, watermelons, and persimmons—each arriving in its own time of year.

To keep up with the start of each harvest and follow the family's latest news, visit them on Instagram: @familiaesteverafols.

My heartfelt thanks to the Familia Esteve Ràfols for their generous time, warm welcome, and willingness to share their story with me.

Until our next journey—and the next story.

Yours,

Vero

Photographs featured in this chapter are by Evgenia Marki (@evgeniamarki).