Joan Raventós: "Brussels seems like a big city, but it has the DNA of a big town. It reminded me of Vilafranca"

Joan Raventós (Vilafranca del Penedès, 1978) has returned home. After five years as a correspondent for 3Cat in Brussels, the editor and presenter of Telenotícies cap de setmana has made the journey back to his native Vilafranca, a city that allows him to escape the daily grind and which is the cradle of two of his passions: human towers and wine. What was the relationship with wine like at your home, as a child?

— As in many houses in Penedès, wine was part of family daily life. From a very young age I used to go with my grandparents to the cooperative to fill carafes: we would bring the five-liter water bottles, fill them with wine from the cooperative, and we already had table wine for the whole week. Wine is intimately linked to our culture, not only of Catalans, but of people from Vilafranca and Penedès.

What is your first memory of this world?

— Although I don't remember it, I know the first time I tasted cava was Christmas of '78. I wasn't even a month old. They dipped my pacifier in a glass of cava. They baptized me, so to speak [laughs]. Seriously, the first time I drank wine must have been when I was 15 or 16 years old. I suppose it was accompanying some dish at a family Sunday lunch.

And with friends?

— At first, when you go out partying, beer prevails. I don't know why that happens. And for people from Penedès, it creates a certain ambivalence: you defend wine, but when you go out partying you end up opting for beer. As you get older, on the other hand, you find the attractions of wine and understand that drinking a glass of it is a pleasure and a cultural commitment. For the people of Penedès, wine is not just the taste – which is fundamental – but the cultural act of consuming a product so emblematic of our home. The pleasure of feeling connected to the fruit of the land where you live is added to the gustatory pleasure.

Add layers?

— The cultural connection cannot be described, but it is there.

At the same time, it is curious that there is not much wine seen at castellers performances.

— A glass of wine should be savored slowly. In a casteller place, with people passing by and making you drop your glass, perhaps the wine does not deserve to be tasted in that environment.

And the beer yes? 

— Perhaps it fits better. I don't want to belittle it, because I like it a lot and I lived for five years in Belgium, which is above all a country of beer. And precisely because I am from a land of wine culture, I appreciate the cultural value that other drinks have for other lands. But wine deserves a tranquility, a peace, a calm, a dedication from me.

Is there a shabby way to consume wine?

— For me, the crappiest version of consuming it is kalimotxo, which we've all had at some point [laughs]. I like the ritual of drinking wine. I don't drink wine to drink. And I've been confirming that over time wines are getting better and better.

In what sense? 

— I remember that when I was young you could find bad wines and cavas. This, over time, has happened to me less and less. It really is hard to find a wine that is bad. There has been an effort on the part of the producers and oenologists that has made the quality improve a great deal. And this invites you to take it more seriously. Every glass is a different world. No matter how many times you have tasted that wine, you never get bored of it.

Wine is also a landscape.

— Sometimes they ask me: what do you keep from the Penedès? I keep the landscape. A few days ago I was discussing it with my son, who is twelve years old. I was accompanying him to a football training session and, on the way, there were vineyards on both sides of the road. I told him: "Look how the vines have changed: fifteen days ago they were completely bare. If you look up a little, you see that the landscape that was a skeleton of vines is now starting to be a green carpet. This constant transformation of the vineyard is a constant transformation of the landscape, and it is part of our environment and the character of the people who live here". In the Penedès, we are lucky to live in such a lively landscape, which is changing, which transforms.

What did his son say?

— We didn't need to have a reflective debate either... But it's good that he sees that at home he has a father with this sensitivity for the environment and the landscape. I was attentive to what he was saying and I saw that he was looking out the window. At least he lifted his head from the screen.

Did he also experience the influence of the environment in Brussels?

— I saw it very clearly when I did an Erasmus in Sweden: they had lamps in the windows as if to make it seem like light was coming in. In Belgium, when the sun comes out a little, people immediately go out into the streets and squares to take advantage of it. But at the same time they resist the rain closing them in at home.

How did he live the change from a medium-sized city to a large capital?

— Brussels seems like a big city, but it has the DNA of a large town. There were things that reminded me of Vilafranca.

For example?

— I used to go to the shops and they knew me. They would ask me about the children or say "Let's have the same as last time?", these little things that seem to only be found in villages. When you find this personal connection in cities, it can't be bought with money.

Against the stereotype of the bureaucratic city, he said that Brussels has a great cultural offer. 

— When I applied for the correspondent position, I had my prejudices: a gray, rainy, boring city, full of people in ties, and a job of talking about indecipherable dossiers and European institutions. From minute zero it was a surprise. That part is there, yes, but when you move a little away from the European quarter, Brussels is a completely lively, very diverse and very dynamic city, which the bad weather does not subdue.

It also represented a shift from a wine capital to a beer capital. 

— It's not that I had lived with my back to beer. It wasn't a culture shock, but it was an incentive, because beer is part of Belgian culture, and by tasting it, you were also tasting part of that culture. There, in any bar, there are eight, ten, or twelve different beer taps. You can try one every day and you find the incentive: this one is different from the other, how it's made, where it comes from. It's a whole world. And the relationship with wine was maintained: downstairs from the house there was a wine shop and on weekends there was always a bottle at home. But it was nice to be able to delve into the culture of beer at the same time.

And Belgian gastronomy? 

— It's not that they have a very extensive gastronomy. On a daily basis, we ate as we eat in Catalonia. When you went to a restaurant, the dishes par excellence were the carbonnade flamande – a kind of meat stew that is good – and the jambonneau, which is really Alsatian. And then there is the dish that Belgians are most proud of and which, frankly, I don't understand: mussels with fries.

He explained that in Belgium he also discovered castles. How was that?

— It must have been almost the last year we were there. The Casal Català of Brussels is very active. I discovered it late, on purpose: the whole family resisted a little to relate a lot with Catalans in order to immerse ourselves more in Belgian culture. The Casal built the group from scratch, with people who didn't even know what a faixa was, and little by little we grew until we performed at the Grand Place and did a 3 of 6. For us it was incredible. We also went to a meeting of international groups in Berlin. A very fond memory.

And now that he has returned to Vilafranca, does he continue building castles? 

— I don't do it, no. Since I came back in the summer, the season was ending. But now that the human tower season is starting again, I'm sure I'll drop by the rehearsal room.

Can you tell me which group? 

— Something is happening to me. I am very responsible for my work. I believe that we journalists must maintain a certain distance from what generates passions of any kind: political, sports, and also cultural. And in this country there is a lot of casteller rivalry.

These competencies… 

— They are part of the human condition. A human tower group is an almost perfect reflection of a society, with its nobilities and miseries. And the beauty of the groups is that, even though they may have differences within, when the gralles sound, everyone is united. Likes, dislikes, colors, beliefs, races, or religions don't matter: what matters is to move forward and load and unload the tower. Perhaps society should learn from this.

He said that local journalism had a point of "discomfort" because you could find the people you were talking about having a coffee next door. Now that she has become such a well-known face, does she still think this is exclusive to local journalism? 

— In local journalism, when you publish a news story about the mayor of Vilafranca, you'll meet him in the street and he'll comment on it. In Brussels it was the other extreme: I was talking about Ursula von der Leyen and she would never have said to me: "Listen, Joan, what you said never happened". Catalonia is perhaps a middle ground. It's a small country and we all know each other, but I haven't found that the protagonists of the news stories have challenged me. The fact of being a somewhat more public figure I notice more in the street: people look at me more, ask me questions, approach me. And it's noticeable that this particularity comes from entering people's homes without asking permission every weekend.

And how is he/she/it carrying it? 

— Okay. People are very polite. I haven't met anyone who made me uncomfortable. Sometimes they look at you and say nothing, and sometimes they are interested in talking to you. I really like talking to people, so when someone comes to talk to me, I take it very well.

In the end, it has become a familiar face… 

— As long as it's a familiar face that people find friendly, I'm already satisfied.