Huesca temática

Number 173 - December-January of 2013 Spanish language Principal menu


Radiquero village

Rural familiar industry
as an example to imitate.

    It is a place of the province of Huesca, belonging to the municipality of Alquézar. Inhabitants: about 115 (take a census of 1991); altitude of 636 meters on the sea level. It is from Huesca 47 kilometers. The gentile is "radiquerano".
     The route is frequented normally for most visitors going to Alquézar, each day more numerous. Radiquero arises shortly after passing Adahuesca, in the foothills of the Sierra de Sevil but they are not generally many who stop in the population, that starts of the same highway; then it will continue ascending for a street that will be widened soon, as if it would want to convert in a square, either to leave space to the building of the parochial church or to the fronton. Here as in villages in the vicinity, the ball game has been traditional.
    The urban nucleus is offered compact, although the village is the result of two neighborhoods, the Upper and Lower, known by the names of Meles and Mierlas, The church climbs up in the maximum level, and to the North of it begins the second neighborhood, the Upper one, in which it is necessary to admire the house of the Ayerbe, placed in steep street that starts in direction West. It had private oratory and an ancient extensive library and valuable antique furniture and an interesting collection of paintings. They commented that wandered different rooms the distinguished figure of Mr. Joseph Ayerbe, who was St. Vincent's College pupil and later professor of Huesca University and canon of Albarracin.
     In the past, Radiquero belonged to Alquézar and afterwards to the brotherhood of the vineyard, to whose hermitage, located in the Pardina de Sevil, responds the people in pilgrimage each 25 of Abríl, by fulfilling a tradition of centuries.
     The parochial church is dedicated to the Assumption, although in Radiquero is known as of Nuestra Señora de Bastarillas. The current building was erected in 1626 and it is of Aragonese Gothic style, with a single nave with three sections, covered by starry vault, straight front, seven chapels and chorus up, to the buttom, on segmental arch and with upper support of cast iron, by forming balusters. In the door of entrance there's a round arch; it's framed between pilasters whose wood appears decorated with geometrics figures, crowned with the corresponding entablature and triangular pediment. There is also a hall of plane roof. The inside is all right kept, care, clean and rehabilitated, by highlighting a showy high altar presided for the virgin.
     The tower belfry rises with only one body. According to references, the current church replaced to other one of Romanesque style, whose traces can still be appreciated. The bautismal font and the cemetery date of 1499. They tell that in 1719 a fact took place miraculous, since an incurable sick neighbor, named Miguel Salinas, found remedy to his disease anointing with oil of the small lamp that was burning before the image of the Virgin, in her chapel of the Vineyard.
     In the municipal term there was several chapels devoted respectively to Santa Agueda, San Saturnino and San Fabián and San Sebastian. The last one, which was preserved, got up in the XVIIIth century.
     The biggest holidays take place on August 16, in honor of the Assumption's Virgin. But earlier, on April 23, the already mentioned pilgrimage is celebrated to the Pardina de Sevil.
   The Somontano is a high quality grape area placed in the Pre-Pyrenees of Huesca. It's a land of contrasts and of biodiversity with different ecosystems: soils, sceneries and altitudes, traditional vineyard in dry grounds and with a rich varietal park where national and European varieties have adapted themselves very well. Radiquero is placed in the foothill of the Sierra de Sevil, the antechamber of the well known Sierra de Guara and in full Cultural Park of the Vero River.

    Mercedes Inés Monclús is the proprietress and artificer of "Bodegas Monclús", of the denomination of origin of the Somontano (Under-Mountains), who from the north of the Somontano shows her wines, that gathers the whole philosophy of the "house": modernity, country's expression and love for the well done things. For your manufacture carried out a selection of vineyards, working with nine acres in northern Somontano, Alquézar and Radiquero. The vineyards are situated at an altitude above 650 meters on slopes with southern exposure, ferrous-clay soils where phenological ripening is slow and excellent. The main productive varieties are: Inés de monclús rosado 2010, Inés de Monclus Tinto 2010, Inés de Monclús Reserva 2006, Inés de Monclús Gewürztraminer-chardonnay and Inés de Monclús Crianza 2006.
    But enterprising woman, Mercedes Inés Monclús manages a familiar restaurant with charm also. A building with wide terraces that lodges wine-cellar and restaurant is the enclave of the wine company, to the feet of Radiquero and the Nature Reserve of Sierra Guara.
    Radiquero still possesses another familiar industry. The Sierra de Sevil was always a shelter, between its abrupt hillsides, of multitude of huts of goat, producer of a milk of hightest quality, being this the germ of the manufacture of handmade cheese between the people of the bordering villages and origin of what later have been transformed into Cheeses of Radiquero. With a raw material of high quality and a completely handmade process, but treated with the highest hygienic and sanitary technology, are produced for more than 30 years the cheeses that have made this place famous and that now come to your table under the denomination "Selection Gourmet".

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     San Pelegrín: Goat cheese handmade elaborated with raw goat milk and rennet of animal origin, pressed paste, containing 45 % of fatty matter. It undergoes to a process of half maturation in cava a minimal of 2 months and it's recommends consumption before a year.
      Los Meleses: it's a goat cheese on soft paste with white mold; it is made from pasteurized goat's milk, yhe rennet used is of animal origin and lacks any kind of preservatives thus obtaining a completely natural product, containing 43% fatty matter. Undergoes a maturation process at least 30 days in camera.
      Rio Vero: Goat cheese of soft paste; it is manufactured from lactic coagulation of pasteurized goat milk, natural rennet and without any additives or preservatives, its mulch blue mold on the outside and white inside makes it peculiar. Its blue mold is edible and bases its flavors. Containing 45% fatty matter.
      They are three of many more varieties of cheese, which along with wines and nature of the proximity of the Sierra de Guara, warrants a visit to the place.

§§§§§§§§§§----------------
 Alfonso Zapater  Fotografías del lugar  Manuel Tomé *  Alfonso Zapater
** Manuel Tomé Bosqued
*** Mercedes Inés Monclús
**** Quesos de Radiquero


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