Ernestina Torelló: "I will rise from the grave if my family doesn't continue making sparkling wines at the Torelló winery."

HelidaInterview Ernestina Torelló (1942, Barcelona) in the family winery, in Torelló Viticultors, in Gelida, where he was on Tuesday, January 20, when there was a fire a few meters away the landslide and the collapse of a retaining wall She was alone at home on the R4 commuter rail line and had decided not to go out again because it was drizzling and the weather was bad. A few minutes before 9 p.m., all the perimeter alarms of the winery began to sound, and she went to see what was happening. After walking a few meters, she encountered firefighters and police officers who asked if they could take the injured to her house. Without hesitation, she let them all in and immediately called her sons, Paco and Toni de la Rosa, who were each at their own homes. They arrived with their grandchildren. The dining room of the farmhouse was transformed into a makeshift hospital room, with all the furniture pushed into the corners, where doctors and nurses from the Emergency Medical System (SEM) came to attend to the sixty-seven people who had been traveling on the trains. Tragically, a train driver died; he was the only one not taken to the hold by the firefighters, police, and emergency medical services. It was a long night, with little sleep, as they were scheduled to receive media from across the country the following day.

He will not forget January 20th.

— I'd never seen anything like it in my life, and it's not pleasant to experience, no. I was impressed by how well the medical staff, firefighters, and police worked together. The travelers were terrified; the injured were screaming in pain, and everyone was constantly attending to them. Just think, a total of thirty-six ambulances arrived here, one after the other. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) were marking the injured with numbers to keep track of them. It was perfectly organized.

What time did it end?

— The last person left at 1:30. They wouldn't let them leave until they were well, and they were being transferred one by one, but there were still people outside at the accident site until 6:00 a.m. A few hours later, we were welcoming journalists from all over. When we finished, we gave the staff who had tirelessly cared for the injured a tour of the winery, because they were interested in us, in who we are.

They thanked him for what he had done.

— We did what we had to do. The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, called me from the hospital to thank me. We were visited by the president of the Parliament, Josep Rull; ministers; and the acting president, Albert Dalmau. I was impressed to see how the SEM (Emergency Medical Service) team worked. Some of them had just finished working at the Ademuz accident site., which had taken place two days earlier.

The last time I was at their winery was in the fall, when they were celebrating the 75th anniversary of the first grape harvest dedicated to a sparkling wine.

— Yes, we've been celebrating it all year long. Francesc Torelló and Josefa Llopart dedicated their 1951 harvest From the Can Martí de Baix estate. We've also made a commemorative bottle, the Torelló 75th Anniversary Brut 2018, with a label that reproduces the grandfather's signature. It's a Corpinnado made with the Xarel·lo (57%), Macabeo (23%) and Parellada (20%) varieties.

It's a collector's bottle.

— I'm all for drinking them, not storing them. My son Paco is one of those who think they should be kept, because he likes to drink them as they've aged; on the other hand, Toni is like me: if you have a bottle, drink it. And yet, I also have a collector's spirit. So, we'll have a few bottles of the commemorative 75th-anniversary bottle that we'll keep and open in a few years.

Will your children continue your work at the winery?

— I've told them this many times. I'll rise from my grave and give them a piece of my mind if my family doesn't continue making sparkling wine at the Torelló winery, but I don't think it will be necessary because they grew up in the winery, they've lived it, and they'll pass it on. My two children often say they were born under a vine. It's the culture they've inherited.

Will the grandchildren work?

— According to our family protocol, which is in writing, anyone wanting to work here must meet certain requirements. They must have worked outside the family business, have a university degree, and be proficient in languages. We don't specify which degrees because we believe every advantage is beneficial. The three of us—my two children and I—agreed to this because the world has changed. We're no longer in the era of a single heir; now, older children need to work with everyone and have the same rights as the rest of the family. We all agreed that the company wasn't a family parking lot.

On Sunday I attended the Basic Wine Tasting, the preliminary event at Barcelona Wine Week. I saw that he was debuting a new glass for his sparkling wines, the Corpinnat glass.

— We're thrilled to be there. We're one of the six founding wineries. We know it will still take years for the brand to become known, but we have all of eternity ahead of us. And for now, the key influencers already know us.

What did you think when you saw that in The New Year's Eve chimes broadcast by TV3 were celebrated with beer.?

— I thought that no one should take anything for granted, that everything has to be earned. Perhaps they thought that everything would always be the same for sparkling wine, but it wasn't. However, they didn't need to drink it straight from the bottle; they could have spared themselves the trouble. I hope that one day Corpinnat can be the sparkling wine of the New Year's Eve celebrations.

Ernestina, you have a law degree. Did you practice law?

— I never got around to it. When I was in my second year, I got married. And in my third, I was going to class pregnant. I remember all my classmates congratulating me. I finished my degree, with good grades. And in my graduating class were students like the journalist Rosa Maria Calaf, the former sports agent Josep Maria Minguella, the financier Mario Conde, and the TV presenter Pedro Ruiz.

Finally, do you think the Corpinnat family is already a real competitor in the French champagne market?

— I think so, we're already there, and besides, there's a fact: not everything produced in France is exceptional; it's just that it often gets away with it simply because it's French. I also think we should prevent all these wines from being bottled here and then labeled as being made in the European Union.