Issue date: 21 Sep, 2018
PROTECTED DENOMINATIONS OF ORIGIN.
If there is one Spanish scent that awakens all our senses, it’s the aroma of Iberico ham.
A platter of Guijuelo ham and a glass of Ribera del Duero are a perfect combination for a get-together among friends or a good chat, to celebrate our successes or console us for our failures.
And the aroma of ham pervades this mini sheet with two stamps celebrating the Protected Designation of Origin of Ribera del Duero and the Protected Designation of Origin of Guijuelo.
The stamp on wine shows a grapevine toasting a glass of wine. Castile and León is fortunate to have the soil that produces one of the world’s best wines. In the archaeological site of Pintia, Padilla de Duero, there are indications that the Vaccaei people already knew and consumed wine some 2,500 years ago.
In 1982, the Ministry of Agriculture awarded the wine the Designation of Origin, approving its first regulation.
The stamp on Iberico ham shows pigs ranging freely in the countryside. Acorn-fed pigs spend their whole lives in large open spaces. This gives them their good musculature, with plenty of marbled fat.
The Iberico pig variety is known for its dark, nearly hairless hide, its long, narrow snout, and its long, slender hind legs. It has large pointed ears which usually fold over, even covering the eyes.
The "Guijuelo" Designation of Origin was granted in 1986. Although it takes its name from a town in Salamanca province, the pigs are reared and the ham is produced throughout Castile and León and in three other regions: Castilla la Mancha, Extremadura and Andalusia.
The stamp is completed by a foreground image of a slice of Iberico ham, intensely coloured and with the classic marbling, which combined with the aroma suffusing the stamp makes it good enough to eat - and it is also ham-flavoured.
Once again Correos opts for innovation in its stamps, like these ones that we can literally smell and taste.
Carmen Álvarez Casanova
Rate A - €0.75. For a “standard” letter or postcard within Spain, up to 20 g.
Rate A2 - €0.85. For a “standard” letter or postcard within Spain, between 20 g and 50 g.
Rate B - €1.65. For a “standard” Ordinary International letter or postcard addressed to Europe (including Greenland), up to 20 g.
Rate C - €1.75. For a “standard” Ordinary International letter or postcard addressed to the rest of the world (except USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand), up to 20 g.
Rate D - €2.10. For a “standard” Ordinary International letter or postcard addressed to the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, up to 20 g.