Delight.

Exposed by a recent forest fire, the primeval topography of these Catalan Vineyard terraces has a potent grandeur shaped by both the forces of nature and the hand of human intervention.

In the Catalan frontier area between Spain and France lie the Pyrenees Mountains. As they approach the Mediterranean, they progressively decrease in height to create the Cap de Creus, a small peninsula. Over time, the wind has eroded the landscape and converted the slate rocks into small fragments. Since the Stone Age, man has sought to tame this inhospitable harsh geology into a habitat for living and working.

From the end of the nineteenth century, the landscape was gradually ordered by the cultivation of vines, from Colliure de la Marenda to Roses Bay in Emporda. Vineyards extend across the terrain, from the top of the mountains down to the edges of the sea. The sweet Banyuls wine -- a gourmet's delight -- is now produced in one of the few vineyards in which winemaking still takes place, creating an exceptional landscape.

The national park of Cap de Creus partially protects this territory, but the special architectonic beauty of strata is always hidden behind a veneer of Mediterranean vegetation. Last summer, the unfortunate natural catastrophe of a forest fire temporarily re-exposed (for a few short months) this marvellous landscape formed and evolved over centuries.

Vineyard terraces are supported by small retaining walls known as feixes, made with the stones picked up during the initial weeding out of the land prior to cultivation. Stones are also used to construct simple square or ovoid volumes called pedraguers. The building process is very basic -- stones are slightly polished and set without mortar, but the results are powerful vernacular architecture: stairs, ramps, dividing walls, sewers for rain water, farmyards and small protection houses. These single-volume dwellings can house up to ten people and provide an occasional and minimal refuge for vineyard workers.

Eventually, the vegetation will recover. But the spectacle of a landscape reduced to its primeval origins remains a potent memory.

BENET CERVERA I FLOTATS