Village
Barbastro is a city and municipality of the province of Huesca, capital of the comarca of Somontano de Barbastro, the third most populous city in the province and the seventh in Aragón. It stands at 341 metres of altitude, in the pre-Pyrenean zone, and is crossed by the río Vero; its lands produce olives, almonds and the vine of the Denominación de Origen Somontano. Taken by the Arabs in 711, it was later the capital of the north-eastern district of the Taifa of Zaragoza. In 1064 an international expedition with a strong Frankish contingent took the Muslim city, an episode considered a proto-crusade that spurred the crusading movement in France, following the preaching of Pope Alexander II in 1063; the Muslims of the taifa of Lleida recovered it the following year.
Monument
16th-century cathedral, built between 1517 and 1533 under the direction of the master builders Juan de Segura and Juan de Sariñena, in Barbastro (Somontano, Huesca), which thus recovered the episcopal see lost in 1149, officially restored in 1573. It combines late Gothic forms with a spatial conception closer to the Renaissance: three naves of equal height with star vaults on slender columns about 15 metres tall. The high altarpiece, of alabaster and polychrome wood, was begun by Damián Forment and continued by his pupil Juan de Liceyre, with scenes of the Passion completed around 1560 and the upper section finished between 1600 and 1602 by Juan Miguel Orliens. It has been a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 1931.
Activity
Festival Vino Somontano, held in Barbastro since 1999, during the first week of August, from Thursday to Sunday. It brings together the wines of the wineries of the Somontano designation of origin with a food showcase in which the town's restaurants and hospitality establishments offer tapas to sample alongside them, all accompanied by performances by artists of national and international renown.
Activity
Barbastro celebrates its festivities of San Ramón del Monte, the city's patron saint, around 31 August, with the traditional lighting of bonfires in neighbourhoods such as Santa Bárbara, San Joaquín and El Ariño, and a pilgrimage to the hermitage of San Ramón carrying the saint's reliquary arm.
Curiosity
Aromatic white grape variety that has become a hallmark of the wines of the D.O. Somontano.
Curiosity
The Ruta del Vino Somontano runs through the wineries of the Denominación de Origen Somontano, created in 1980 and registered in the European Union in 1986, centred on Barbastro (Huesca). The vineyards extend between 350 and 1,000 metres of altitude, in a transition zone between the Ebro valley and the Pyrenees, and total around 4,644 hectares spread across 34 wineries, with production close to 120,000 hectolitres a year. Alongside native varieties such as moristel, tempranillo, garnacha tinta, parraleta, macabeo, garnacha blanca and alcañón, other international varieties are grown, such as cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, syrah, chardonnay, gewürztraminer, sauvignon blanc and riesling, a combination that gives Somontano wines their own character.
Activity
Barbastro celebrates its local festivities on 21 June and 4 September, according to the official calendar of Huesca; the city is also the capital of the Somontano Denomination of Origin and host of the Somontano Wine Festival.
Historical milestone
The Crusade of Barbastro, or Siege of Barbastro, was an international expedition sanctioned by Pope Alexander II to seize the city from the Muslims; it was made up mainly of Franks and Burgundians, together with an Italo-Norman papal contingent and troops from the armies of Barcelona, Urgell and Aragon, the latter led by the future king Sancho Ramírez, as well as Duke William VIII of Aquitaine, who crossed the Pyrenees via Somport. After the siege, the city, then part of the Taifa of Lleida, fell in 1064 without receiving reinforcements and was pitilessly sacked. The following year the Muslims recovered it in a counterattack that wiped out the small Christian garrison. Because of its international scope it is considered a prelude to the crusades of the following two centuries.
Historical milestone
Ramiro II the Monk betrothed in 1137 his one-year-old daughter Petronila to the count of Barcelona and handed him the kingdom while keeping the title for himself; the pact sealed in the Entremuro quarter gave rise to the Crown of Aragon.
Historical milestone
Peter I recovered the city in 1101 for the kingdom of Aragon and moved to it the episcopal see that until then resided at Roda de Isábena, making it the religious and commercial head of the whole Somontano.
Historical milestone
Fifty-one Claretian missionaries, most of them young students, were shot in August 1936 on the outskirts of the city during the first weeks of the war; the diocese lost close to eighty-seven percent of its clergy.
Food and drink
A large, fleshy tomato with thin skin and very few seeds, sweet and low in acidity, pink in color rather than the deep red typical of other varieties; it is harvested from August to November, although it can be grown all year round. It has held a collective trademark registered in 2014 in the name of the Asociación de Hortelanos del Alto Aragón, which thereby recognized the tomato's intellectual property. Since 2013 the Congreso Nacional del Tomate Rosa de Barbastro has been held annually within the Feria Regional de Barbastro (FERMA), dedicated to promoting the product.
Food and drink
Every 25 March crespillos are fried, borage leaves coated in a batter of flour, egg, milk and anise and dusted with sugar, in a rite that according to tradition served to make the Somontano olive trees fruitful.