We were featured in the Gourmet Magazine of El Corte Inglés.

Club del Gourmet, the magazine for food and cooking lovers of El Corte Inglés, dedicates an article to us because of the quality of our product and our work in the recovery of the golden blond lineage.

A round of pure Iberian pork

Between oaks and chestnut trees, the pigs of the Dehesa of the Monteros trot and roam in the heart of the Serranía de Ronda. A unique enclave where these porcine athletes live in freedom and carve hams as exquisite as they are exclusive. Not to be missed.
text JAIME DE LAS HERAS - El Corte Inglés Gourmet Magazine

What two decades ago was to become a golden retirement (keep this word safe) ended up becoming for the Simón Gámez family an opportunity to claim the Serranía de Ronda as a breeding ground for the Iberian pig.

BEYOND THE ACORN
The mountain slopes, full of vegetation, in the ecosystem of the Genal Valley, are the oasis where these Iberian 100% pigs thresh at will. There, in the heart of the province of Malaga, they live, graze and scamper in the pastureland that outlines the Ronda landscape, carved in numerous ramps, which makes athletes of the Dehesa pigs of the Monteros. “It is a more complex breeding because of the type of terrain, but the pigs do a lot of exercise,” explains Chelo Simón, head of Marketing and Communication of this family-run company.
“My mother [Chelo Gámez] started this when she retired, at the age of 65, and lo and behold, what was going to be a retirement turned into a business opportunity,” he says of this company that started with just 50 pigs in 2006.
«It's a more complex breeding because of the type of terrain, but the pig gets a lot of exercise,” the company says.
Only 2,000 hams are produced each year by this family business. Its secret lies in the pig's diet based on acorns and chestnuts, and in the orography of the Serranía, marked by its relief.
Now there are a thousand who live like kings on these farms. During the montanera they base their diet on acorns, but they have a unique premontanera: chestnuts. “We are in the southernmost chestnut grove in Spain, and we take advantage of it for a month and a half for the pigs to eat its fruit,” explains José Simón, Managing Director of La Dehesa de los Monteros. “Each pig eats about 10 kilos of chestnuts a day during that period,” he says. And that then translates into the taste of their hams. “The chestnut adds more high oleic fat and is sweeter than the acorn: it leaves a special aftertaste that scratches less. That's why this ham is different,” adds Chelo.
During the premontanera, which takes place between September and October, these pigs supplement their diet with up to 10 kilos of chestnuts per day.
“The chestnut adds more high oleic fat and is sweeter than acorns, so it leaves a special aftertaste: it scratches less than the one who has only eaten acorns.”

You can see the complete article here.