San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
This little piggy came from Spain
In a California first, farm bets on jamon Iberico
Before sunrise one eventful summer morning, a doubledecker 18wheeler pulled into a sprawling ranch north of Calistoga, completing its 2,500mile journey from Florida ferrying a precious and unique cargo.
When the ramp descended, out waddled one black pig, which sniffed around curiously before 79 others disembarked. It wasn’t long before they all zeroed in on one especially majestic, acornladen oak tree and plopped themselves under it contentedly.
That marked the christening of Encina Farms of Middletown (Lake County), the first and only commercial farm in California raising Iberian pigs. The prized blackfooted, acorndevouring pigs are a breed native to Spain and produce what connoisseurs consider the finest ham in the world. If all goes according to plan, Encina will become the first local producer of jamon Iberico, which can command $40 for a mere 3 ounces and is traditionally enjoyed in paperthin slices to let its decadent fat melt on the palate.
Named for the Spanish word for “live oak,” the farm was cofounded in September by Helmut Drews, a 34yearold Colombia native who grew up on his grandparents’ dairy farm before becoming a tech acquisitions specialist in the Bay Area; and Alberto Solis, a 64yearold Madrid native and Spanish foods importer who helped launch KitchenTown, the commercial kitchenfood business accelerator in San Mateo.
“Iberico is the product that Spaniards are most proud of,’’ says Solis. “To work with it somewhere else is exciting — and scary. I am not doing this for ego. I am doing it for the pure love of it.”
It remains a challenging venture, which is why with the exception of a small herd at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for research purposes only, no other farm in California is raising them commercially.
One major hurdle was finding suitable land for the freerange pigs. It not only had to have water but forests of oak trees to provide abundant acorns high in monounsaturated oleic fatty acids that help the pigs develop their broad band of back fat that has earned them the nickname “the olive tree with legs.” It’s that generous amount of fat that enables the saltrubbed hinds to withstand a curing process of two years without turning rancid to produce Iberico.
Solis and Drews scoured the state for six months to no avail until a former Berkeley classmate of Drews’ put him in touch with a business colleague.
That person turned out to be Peter Luchetti, managing partner of Table Rock Infrastructure Partners in San Francisco, whose wife is Emily Luchetti, acclaimed executive pastry chef for San Francisco’s Big Night Restaurant Group (Marlowe, Park Tavern, et al.). His family’s 650acre ranch, with its thousands of oak trees, some more than 100 years old, fit the criteria, so Drews and Solis ended up leasing 120 acres of it.
“To think we could produce Iberico in our own backyard, which could be used by a local butcher or chef, that would be a 100 percent success for everyone,” says Emily Luchetti. “We’re just excited to be part of this grand experiment, one that I have complete faith in.”
Procuring the Iberian pigs was no easy feat. Strict regulations in both Spain and the United States make them difficult to import. As a result, there are only about 5,000 Iberian pigs in the United States, according to Hines Boyd of the eighthgeneration Glendower Farms in Monticello, Fla., which has been raising the breed since 2015.
In 2014, he was instrumental in paving the way for a group of Spanish entrepreneurs known as the Acornseekers to bring the first Iberian pigs since Spanish colonial days to the United States. Those 150 purebred pigs were brought to a farm in Texas. Six months later, 30 more Iberians from Spain made their way to a Georgia farm. Since then, a New Jersey farm has also started raising a Portuguese version of the breed.
Iberian pig farmers in the United States are a closeknit group, Boyd says, and loath to sell any breeding stock in order to maintain their exclusivity with the slowgrowing breed, whose litters are half the size of industrial pigs. Iberian pigs don’t reach market weight (about 350 pounds) until about 16 months old, twice as long as industrial pigs. Ideally, most of that weight should come from being finished on acorns for 60 to 120 days.
Boyd regularly turns down queries from prospective buyers for some of his 500 Iberians, though he does sell the fresh meat to chefs. He made his only exception for Solis, who was head of national sales for Acornseekers for a year and a half after selling his stake in KitchenTown. Hines agreed to sell his pigs in exchange for a small stake in Encina Farms.
“This is not an easy business to be in. If someone thinks they can jump into it and make money quick, they ought to think again,” Boyd says. “California’s environment seems to come closer to Spain than anything else I’ve seen in the United States. I think these California guys have the best shot of anyone of having a continued market for finishing the pigs on acorns.”
Solis and Drews were intent on getting the pigs settled in time for this year’s acorn season, which runs from the end of August through the end of November. At other times of the year, the pigs will subsist on whatever they forage outdoors, as well as a nonGMO wheatbased feed.
These first hogs are being raised for their fresh, deeply red meat rather than for curing Iberico. Fatted Calf of San Francisco and Napa has already put dibs on some for charcuterie. Thanks to Emily Luchetti’s connections, other chefs can’t wait to get their hands on the meat, too.
In the spring, Boyd will send Solis and Drews two boars and 20 sows, including their expected litter of 120 piglets. Those offspring, who will be finished on acorns in November 2020, will be destined for the first batch of Iberico.
“California is all about people doing things that no one else is doing,’’ Solis says. “Some people told us we were crazy. But we are daring to do it.’’