Albera commemorates the arrival of phylloxera, which devastated the vineyard, with a memorial.

RabosoOn October 20, 1879, Official Gazette of the Province (BOP) of Girona issued a statement certifying the entry of phylloxera into the Principality from France. The statement read: "Having carried out the optional inspection provided for in Article 7 of the Law of 30 July 1879, this commission has agreed to declare that a vineyard located in the Cuello de Fornells in the municipal district of Rabós has been invaded by phylloxera and to make said declaration public.Last June, Jordi Esteve, a local winemaker, installed a memorial sculpture in his winery—the first in Alt Empordà—commemorating this historic event. It will be inaugurated next Sunday during the Alberes Free Wine Fair, known as Contraban.

The aphid that devastated thousands of hectares of vineyards across Europe was detected in the Nuevo de Can Benido vineyard, on the Fornells de Rabós hill. The warning came from a resident of the same village who had attended a lecture a few days earlier in Figueres by Collioure pharmacist Pau Oliver, in which he explained the symptoms of vineyards affected by phylloxera. In 1878, the insect had already been detected in the northern Catalan region of Conflent, specifically in Prada, and Oliver was in charge of leading the eradication campaign on the other side of the Albera. As part of preventive measures that were never fully implemented, Oliver gave various lectures and practical demonstrations—always in Catalan—in several towns in the Empordà region.

"The experts at the time summoned the vice president of the agricultural committees of Roussillon and, together with the Girona engineer, Joaquim d'Espona, went to certify it on the ground, and then they said that phylloxera had probably already set in two years," explains historian Pere Gifre.

Water and beer instead of wine

In fact, in the Catalan Newspaper On October 5, 1879, eleven days before the presence of the aphid was certified in the New Vineyard of Can Benido, in an article signed by Lo Corresponsal in a Catalan prefabrian, he writes: "It is said that the mal puig has existed for two years now; this is the time that experience has shown is necessary for the insect to kill." And he adds: "And it is assumed that the introduction took place in the following manner: In said town there is someone who until recently had the trade of smuggler, and this individual had the habit of hiding contraband bales in the diseased vineyard. As he previously crossed vineyards of Roussillon where the disease existed and rested in them, hence it is believed that in this way such an annoying guest has come to us."

The correspondent of Catalan Newspaper He also said that perhaps destroying the focus would make the threat of the plague spreading disappear, but he did not see it as very clear: "I am more pessimistic; I fear that there are more vineyards attacked and I base my opinion on the fact that every year a multitude of workers from the Ampurdán go to France to harvest the bream, which,. And ends up predicting: "We prepare to drink beer or water."

Indeed, phylloxera devastated the vineyards. "When it arrived, there were 20,888 hectares in the Alt Empordà region alone. These are figures from Nicolás García de los Salmones, an engineer who conducted a study just after the phylloxera outbreak. The fact that there are now just over two thousand women is a measure of the magnitude of the problem at the time," explains Gifre. Vineyards were one of the main resources of the rural world, and their decline contributed to a rural exodus to the cities. "The impact of phylloxera was significant, and proof of this is that there was a peak in the population of these villages in the Alt Empordà region in those years that has probably never recovered. The drop was extremely sharp," adds Gifre. However, he points out that it wasn't the only cause: "At the same time as phylloxera, there was a crisis in the olive and cereal industries. People talk about the agricultural and livestock crisis, and everything else is linked. And that explains everything. In other words, it's not just phylloxera, which is very significant, especially in Cap de Creus and the Alberes," but also the Aloja region. Gifre also explains that in 1891, less than 5,000 hectares had been replanted, 23% of those that had been uprooted.

Phylloxera in the Iberian Peninsula

A year before it was detected in Alt Empordà, phylloxera had already been detected in Málaga. "It entered Catalan territory through Rabós, but not Spanish territory, because it entered from the south through direct importation from a vineyard that already had it, specifically in Málaga, the same year or the previous year in Rabós. The dates vary slightly, according to the documentation, since some say it was in 1878 and 1879, but 88 were detected in Andalusia," says Romina Ribera, historian, archaeologist, and sommelier, who for the last ten years has specialized in communicating and disseminating the history of wine through tastings, conferences, and other activities in which she explains the origins of wine.

Ribera recalls an article by Eduard Puig Vayreda, an authority on the subject, in which he explains that the Catalan Agricultural Institute of San Isidro (IACSI) sent Joan Miret, as commissioner for the phylloxera issue, to travel to Europe, and that upon his return he wrote up his conclusions. "Miret, and with him other agricultural leaders, concluded that the dreaded insect, which cannot fly more than 20 kilometres, would not be able to cross the easternmost Pyrenees – thus preventing its entry into Catalonia – if it lacks vegetation (vines) to feed on, since it does not feed on any other plant2. This is eliminated from another plant. kilometres wide by 30 kilometres long south of the Pyrenees. This barrier, zone of isolation or cordon sanitaire, as you may call it, represented an area of seventy thousand hectares, a quarter of which was vineyards. Ribera also explains that "on 14 May 1880, in the midst of the extinction campaign and coinciding with the day on which the uprooting work was to begin, 800 residents of Llers, including the Town Hall and clergy, gathered in the Els Hostalets neighbourhood and, at the sound of the mata, met unarmed. The protesters were loudly cheered," sources explain. In other words, "it was clear that the revolt was not against the king but against those who wanted to uproot the vineyards," Ribera notes.

But phylloxera was already present in the Iberian Peninsula before the end of the 1980s. Studies indicate that phylloxera had already entered Portugal ten years earlier, in 1868. It was the first outbreak detected on the Peninsula. The newspaper The Fight published on July 19, 1878: "We intended to avoid the plague of the common enemy by placing obstacles on the French and Portuguese borders and, when we were most occupied in choosing the anti-philloxerycotic means, behold, the terrible and feared animal appears before us from the rear when we least expected it, and seizes the vineyards of Malaga, the main wealth of the Andalusian country.".

Phylloxera Memorial

During the course of the Contraband Fair, which will be held next Sunday in Rabós, will inaugurate the memorial that Esteve, a winegrower, oenologist, and local history buff, commissioned from the artist Mònica Campdepadrós, also a resident of Rabós. "I decided to install this memorial because there is no reminder of phylloxera in the entire Empordà, at least, and since Rabós was the first point where the arrival of this plague was detected on this side of the border, I had it in mind for some time, and I got to it," explains the owner of the Rim de Rabó winery, who received the commission with enthusiasm: "I thought of a door as an essential symbolic element. An open door, clearly angular, that would connote an abject and nefarious entrance, that was not a triumphal arch," says the artist, "and the result is a work that seeks to connect the past with the present."

After five years of hiatus, the Contraban Fair returns to Rabós as host. The town's four wineries will each host five more, on either side of the Albera. There will be around twenty wineries in total. The requirement is that they be winemakers: organic winegrowers and producers of natural or minimally intervened wines.

But can phylloxera become a danger again? "There was no phylloxera in the Canary Islands, and now the first cases are being detected, when there never was one before. This is interesting to study closely because we need to see how it evolves to have information on how it happened here, how it attacked, and how long it took. Despite knowing that the viticultural conditions in the Canary Islands are very specific." Today, we live with phylloxera and there is no risk of it spreading, since the vine roots are American, grafted with local varieties, and this vine is immune. Curiously, the problem came from North America, but also the solution.