Harvesting with Wolves: Distilling Lavandula latifolia from Star Mountain
Harvesting Lavandula latifolia on ‘Star Mountain’ is always a highlight for us at EssènciesCat. The hot, sweaty, prickly harvest turns into a celebratory party we share with close friends and collaborators. It’s a bit of a pilgrimage getting there, and once there, we get soaked in sweat with itchy seeds sticking to our clothing. All this is compensated with hearts bursting with wonder at the stunning views of our homeland – the Àlt Empordà and of course, the aroma of wild lavender humming in the air. It’s a ritual to commune with high summer and the wild places still pure.
We first discovered the abandoned terraced hillside of the crumbling farmstead of Can Mateu in 2018, thanks to Bastiaan (from The School of Nature), who took a route to the vulture restaurant on the other side of the foothills of Mare de Déu del Mont, past this treasured spot.
Today, the terraces are home to thyme, everlasting, rosemary, mastic, juniper, carnations, spurge, grasses galore, and spike lavender (Lavandula latifolia) growing wild with panoramic views of the Empordà, near the hermitage of Santa Maria de l’Estela.
As we drove—or rather bounced and skidded—up the boulders between holly oaks and sweating pines, a bearded vulture, or “bonebreaker,” surfed effortlessly across the sun through the valley. Europe’s rarest vulture, whose numbers are being restored in the Pyrenees with 100 breeding pairs. (1.) What an omen!
I love receiving omens for our harvests! Laurel had a pair of Short-toed Eagles once, screeching over our heads as they circled while we trimmed the laurel bushes. What more of a blessing could a distiller want! Culebrera europea) I’m going to take today’s gliding omen for our lavender harvest: vultures, purifiers of ecosystems wherever they circle, digesting and preventing the spread of viruses in their cleansing of carrion. Quite similar to Lavandula latifolia’s highly antimicrobial and purifying properties.
We reach the summit in Jep’s 4×4. Jep is the local shepherd, with flocks of sheep, goats, and a herd of cows he’s taken to pasture on the higher slopes of Mare de Déu del Mont (Mother of God Mountain). His father lives in a dilapidated farmstead on the way up to Estela. If you’re friendly with him, he’ll invite you to his “restaurant,” where wild boar and exquisite homemade chamomile or rosemary liquors are served in his kitchen.
This year, though, the lavenders are small, almost limp on fragile stalks. It hasn’t rained properly since a very wet spring, and now it’s early August. A few butterflies—tortoiseshell and coral blues—flutter from flower to flower. Bees sing in ecstasy as they work. A light breeze ruffles the morning before the sun takes centre stage and dominates the landscape.
Within two hours, we’ve scrambled the goat paths and harvested one third of the flowers (leaving a third for the bees and a third “for nature”), eaten melon, and guzzled water under a fig tree, guardian of the shade.
Our group of plant experts and friends bounce down the mountain for paella in the distillery. We load the alambique while Lluís prepares the sizzling pan. We distill lavender from this site every other year, leaving one year for it to rest. This is our third distillation. Two years ago, our alambique was full to the brim with 120kg of freshly cut flowers. This year, we’re using our “top section” to distill the precious 30kg harvested. The vapour distillation by our “true artisan distiller,” Oriol, is precise and careful in order to extract the authentic odour. Four hours later, he separates 250g of pure essential oil from the exquisite and potent hydrosol we also sell for topical application. The yield is 0.80%, compared to 1.20% in 2024. Sobering numbers.
As the conversation spills to Jep’s animals, we reflect on how their grazing pastures create efficient fire breaks in the otherwise “dirty,” overgrown woodland. The devastating fires sweeping Europe—being named “ogres” and “dragons” with pyrocumulonimbus fire-breathing clouds—are revealing that wherever there is good forest management, animals grazing, and humans living and working with the forests, the fires ‘shall not pass’, in wizard speak.
Farmsteads that would have housed four or five families now crumble, trees, and brambles reclaiming them. Just two generations later, whole communities have deserted the terraced slopes and woodland. Forest ‘plazas’ at crossroads of tracks are forgotten and smudged by ‘sota bosc’, undergrowth.
This abandonment is felt keenly by Jep, who now suffers the wolf—back in these foothills after decades of absence. Deer, boar, and bucks go “lower” where there is more water, so the wolves attack Jep’s goats regularly. When there are more than five wolves, they attack the dogs guarding the flock. The attacks have become so regular that he’s considering stopping the shepherding altogether. There is no government policy in place to support small farmers living with wolves.
And yet, on another note, it’s rather ecstatic to imagine wolves pawing past “our” spike lavender (Lavandula latifolia). There are plenty of buck deer and goat droppings in these terraces, so the chances are that a small family of wolves have also brushed past these fragrant blooms.
As we separate the essential oil from the hydrosol, I find myself contemplating again our intense day of sharing combined with the previous days feeling the fire season in Europe getting wildly out of control.
Our lives are entwined so deeply. The impact we have on the land, our relationship with fire, vulture, and wolf, sings through this crystal lavandine voice—the healer of burns.
What is being exposed is that our society has grade 3 burns, and the very fabric of our society that should bind us together is exposed to the vultures to crack through our white bones (their diet is 80% bone) and feast on.
It’s worth remembering that Lavandula latifolia was the founder of aromatherapy. R.M. Gattefossé severely burnt himself while working in his laboratory and reacted by dipping his burns into a vat of Lavandula latifolia essential oil. The rest “is history”—the chemist and perfumer went on to set the bases for modern aromatherapy.
Maybe we need to “get our fingers burnt” in order to react, to start a new science, practice, and approach. If we could listen to the voice of these fires, wouldn’t they be reminding us that we are all one, that their ravaging flames reflect our own insatiable appetite to consume? That we are the fire breathing ogres wreaking destructive chaos, creating our own thermal currents and storms that only create more heat. Perhaps Lavandula latifolia’s quiet, bell-like voice is calling us back to healing waters and to return to the practice of living in service to the land, flora, and fauna. To cleanse and purify our human systems so they support each other for healthier ecosystems to flourish.
Lavender, vulture, panoramic views and wolves in harvest heat.
What have you taken without asking, dear one?
It’s not a question of them or us, the wolf or the goats, water or flames, but rather, lavandula rings from Star Mountain for a deep, purifying cleanse, and return to balance.
This distillation is dedicated to all those affected by the wildfires so far in 2026.
