The Pope, a Guijuelo ham and the Mayor of Barcelona
In August 2024, Jaume Collboni travelled to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis. Among his gifts, one chosen with care: a vacuum-packed slice of Iberian ham from Guijuelo. Not Belgian chocolate, not extra virgin olive oil, not Rioja wine. Iberian ham from Guijuelo. Because it turns out the Pope loves it, and when someone truly loves Guijuelo ham, it is very hard to top it as a gift.
The news reached us the way things that matter usually do — quietly. No fanfare. Just one fact that speaks for itself: the mayor of the fourth most visited city in Europe, with all the protocol and options at his disposal, chose a delicacy from our mountains.
Why it always ends up being Guijuelo ham
This surprises no one who knows the area. Guijuelo has been the place where Iberian ham reaches its finest expression for centuries. It is not coincidence or marketing: it is geography and time.
The sierra de Béjar and the sierra de Francia form a corridor of cold, dry wind above a thousand metres of altitude. That air — the same air we breathe in the cellar every morning — does something no drying chamber can replicate: it cures the ham slowly, without artifice, letting the marbled fat melt into the lean and the aromas settle properly. The result is a long, complex flavour with no harsh edges.
Four generations of the Hernández Jiménez family have been doing exactly that since 1890. No change of method. No shortcuts.
The Pope visits Madrid
Pope Francis’s visit to Madrid in June 2026 fills us with pride, as it does so many others. And we cannot help thinking about that packet of Iberian ham that made the journey to the Vatican less than two years ago.
If someone at a papal audience were to ask where this ham he enjoys so much comes from, the answer would always be the same: from the cellars of the Salamanca mountains. From the cold. From time. From hands that have been doing the same thing for decades because they know there is no better way.
Our ham, in the Vatican
The packet of ham the Mayor of Barcelona brought to the Pope was from Hernández Jiménez — the very same ham you can order directly from our cellar in Guijuelo.
That is not a small detail. It means that, of all the Iberian hams available in Barcelona, someone with discernment chose ours for a state table. No intermediary capable of improving what has been leaving here since 1890.
If the ham that reached the Vatican sounds like the one you want on your table, you know where to find it.
The ham that reached the Vatican. Order it directly from our cellar.