4.5 hectares on an 80-million-year-old limestone hillside above the Júcar valley. Orange terraces, a farmhouse, and a forest in transition.
The limestone beneath Finca Tariqa formed from the compressed shells of marine creatures that lived in a warm shallow sea over the Cretaceous period. When the tectonic forces that built the Alps began compressing Iberia, this ancient seabed was squeezed, folded, and pushed upward to form Puig Gros — the hillside we farm today.
The fractures that run through it now hold the water that feeds the farm's karst aquifer below the grove. The limestone dissolves slowly, releasing calcium and trace minerals into the shallow rendzina soil above. No alluvial valley soil can replicate this mineral profile — and minerals are a primary driver of flavour in citrus, just as they are in Burgundy or Priorat wine.
The hillside sits above the Júcar valley flood plain. When DANA struck in October 2024, the valley flooded. The limestone shed water through its fractures and recharged the aquifer. Height is structural resilience.
Thin rendzina soil and fast drainage create natural water deficit — the same stress winemakers deliberately chase. Brix rises. Aromatics deepen. Minerals dissolved from 80 million years of limestone enter the root system and show up in the flavour profile of the fruit.
The karst aquifer beneath the grove is fed by rainfall on the limestone massif. It sits on its own geological formation, structurally separate from the Júcar valley floor water system. An advantage that grows more valuable as Mediterranean water competition intensifies.
A hillside with its own water, above the flood plain, on limestone terrain — in a warming climate, that is a different risk category from valley floor farming. The geology is the resilience strategy. It was there before the farm. It will be there after.
The 1,100 orange trees on the hillside range from around 32 to over 70 years old. The oldest were documented in a 1957 geological survey of Puig Gros — they were already established then. They are grafted on portaín, bitter orange rootstock, a traditional choice for citrus on limestone terrain in Valencia.
Each tree is on the same hillside, in the same soil, under the same sky — but because they vary in age, variety, and position on the slope, no two behave identically in the harvest. That variability is part of what makes them interesting to track.
Storm DANA hit the Júcar valley in October 2024. The valley floor flooded catastrophically. The grove, on limestone hillside above the plain, shed water through the rock's natural fracture network and recharged the karst aquifer below.
The lower terraces took damage. Some Navelina trees were stressed. The full assessment is underway — Ian begins the field baseline in September 2026, working through each tree systematically. Some will recover with management. The count of genuinely lost trees will be documented and published when we know it.
The hillside survived as geography. What DANA showed is that position on limestone above the flood plain is a structural asset in an era of extreme weather — not a legacy decision but a relevant one for the decades ahead.
Regenerative citrus and a maturing holm oak forest can sequester 1 to 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare per year. At 4.5 hectares, that puts the farm's potential removal in the range of 4 to 22 tonnes annually once the system is established.
We are starting the soil carbon baseline this autumn — one composite sample per parcel, taken to the IVIA-accredited laboratory in Valencia. That measurement becomes the reference point for everything that follows: organic certification, carbon credit documentation, and the annual record of what the land is actually doing.
The EU Carbon Removal Certification Framework opens around 2028. The record starts now so we enter with years of data, not months.
Adopt a tree on this land and receive its fruit each season — harvested from the same limestone soil, delivered fresh. From €99 per year.