Joan Ignasi Domènech: "We have to eliminate the icon of a glass of red wine to indicate the prohibition of drinking alcohol: why doesn't a distilled spirit appear there?"

Llaberia Mountain RangeI am interviewing the owner of the Vinyes Domènech winery (DO Montsant), Joan Ignasi Domènech (el Masnou, 1951), on a harvest day in the early morning hours. In addition to being immersed in work, these are also the September days in which he has organized the first Garnatxa Week, which has led him to contact nearly two hundred restaurants and wine shops throughout the country so that customers who drink a glass of garnatxa wine can participate in a contest whose prize is to visit the winery, enjoy tastings, and take part in contemplative activities. It is an activity that the Domènech family has invented, and they want it to last every year around September 18th. The winery produces a volume of 70,000 to 110,000 bottles depending on the vintage, and they export 20% to 30% of them to about fourteen countries. In 2024, Vinyes Domènech celebrated the twenty years of its first wine.

You have been linked to the Priorat region since you were a child.

— My father was from Falset; he was in love with it, we used to go there in the summers. When we were little, doctors told us that in the summers we had to spend time in humid climates, and also in dry ones. So I would spend a whole month in Falset. It was very nice there: I could walk alone through the streets, through the mountains, nobody controlled me. I did the same with my two children.

Before making wines, you edited books.

— Yes, I created a company called Serveis Escolars Domènech. I patented the school diary myself as a tool for communication between families and school. In Brussels, one day, I met the agricultural engineer and master in viticulture and oenology Pedro Ballesteros before he liked wine and before I dedicated myself to it. Mr. Ballesteros was a high-ranking official of the European Union in energy matters.

When the winery turned twenty years old, in 2024, you celebrated it at the Botanical Garden of Barcelona.

— It was very difficult for me to organize it! I had to ask for several permits, but I wanted to do it there because wine is botany; I understand it as the ecosystem where the vine grows. Pedro Ballesteros came, who remembered that we met in Brussels on a grey day, and that I spoke about climate change and the education of the new generations, and he said that when I explained it, my projects made a lot of sense.

At what point do you make a turn and start making wines?

— My work was taking me more and more to be with nature. Then one day when we were in Falset with my children and my wife, I told them I wanted to show them the mountain where I used to go as a child. We went to the Llaberia mountain range, which is a natural amphitheater, which was abandoned, with vineyards, and we were amazed. We said we should do something there. We went down to Falset, and I started asking whose land that was, and they told me the farmer's name. With the name, I went to look for him. We agreed on the purchase. Since I knew that people in general are suspicious of those from Barcelona, I gave him a blank check so that he could put the value on it. He told me he had to talk to his wife about it. It seems he wanted to sell it and his wife did not. In the end, he told me yes, but that it would cost me a lot, and I told him to ask for a price. We agreed. Look, now we have organized a tribute for him.

And the story of Vinyes Domènech began.

— We had to clear the land, plant vines. There were some planted sixty years ago of the varieties black grenache, hairy grenache. Now we have white, red, black, and hairy ones. When we started, there was very little grenache in all of Catalonia, about fifty hectares.

Did you plant more?

— We never buy from nurseries; we make our own seedlings because it is the way to preserve uniqueness. Once I did buy Cabernet Sauvignon, because it was in fashion. We also use our own yeasts. My first two wines were from Garnacha Negra and Garnacha Peluda: Furvus and Teixar.

What does Furvus mean?

— Actually, I wanted to call it Fau, which is a local name, and when I went to the registry they told me I couldn't use it because it was the name of a beer. A Frenchman challenged the name, so I changed it.

They were an immediate success.

— The wine critic Jose Peñín gave us ninety-five points. It was a surprise. They gave them to us for a wine we had made with a variety that was not noble, to which no value was given. Back then, everything was Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon. It was 2004! Look at how everything has changed, now.

Why did you understand that you had to preserve the grenache that you found when you bought the estate?

— Because I thought that I could not get rid of that old vineyard. It was not easy. I was going to the United States and China to sell wine, and nobody there knew about Grenache. It was the great moment for Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons. We were 5% of the producers who had it in the world. On the flight back, I thought that we had to create a Catalan association of Grenache producers, and that is how I founded Terra de Garnatxes, which grouped producers from Roussillon, Sardinia, Madrid, Navarre, Aragon. I founded it fifteen years ago, and this year I dissolved it because I think we have achieved the foundational objectives. Now, on restaurant menus, the name Grenache appears; there is passion; it is known.

Terra de Garnatxes is dissolved, but this year you have launched the Garnacha Week.

— We could say it is a transformation. Until now we held the International Grenache Day, which was the third Friday of September, which we invented ourselves, and we even managed to hold the world competition, which is itinerant, and the president is Fabrice Rieu, who is part of the Roussillon Regulatory Council. With the Week we wanted to bring wine closer to the people. We have to educate young people in the culture of the vineyard, of nutrition, of health, and they will drink wine when they are older. I think we have to change the way we have communicated wine until now. It should be drunk in moderation. When young, nobody drank wine; they will drink it later on, but first let us educate them in the culture, because wine is the only beverage that can be explained from its origin. And then I think we have to eliminate the icon of a glass of red wine to indicate the prohibition of drinking alcohol; why doesn't a spirit or a beer appear there? Wine is the most identifying Mediterranean product, with an ancient culture that has been with us for thousands of years. And regarding the permitted blood alcohol levels, why do they change in different countries of the European Union? We have quite a few different ones depending on the country you move through. For all these reasons I think we have to communicate wine better, and not punish it.

For being the first time you organize the Garnacha Week, you have managed to get two hundred restaurants and wine bars from all over the country to join, you say.

— They do the work; we wanted to give them the spotlight. They can offer a glass of garnacha, and then the consumer, with some QR codes, can access the stories we have written. If they answer them, we have created some experiences to do at the winery, on Sundays, October 17th and 30th.

To finish, if you had to give a definition of Garnacha, what would you say?

— It is sensuality, a breeze; it is a variety that has a thousand and one faces depending on where you cultivate it, because it lets itself be seduced by the type of soil and the climates. And I would also tell you that it is a luscious variety: the white is silky; the black, velvety. Always balsamic, sensual.