"I belong to the lost generation of Priorat, the one who told us to move away because we were the poorest region in the country."

With one year remaining until the Montsant DO reaches its 25th anniversary, the DO's president, Pilar Just, affirms that they are working to update the regulations. Currently, wines produced are classified with the winegrower-producer, bottler-producer, and marketer distinctions. The new regulations aim for the labeling to also indicate whether it is a single-site wine, a village wine, a regional wine, and new classifications. "We want transparency with the new categories, because we are the only designation of origin that knows 100% the traceability of its wines," affirms the president, who recalls that hers is the generation that was pushed to live outside the region. "I myself am from a generation of people our parents believed was lost, because they didn't want us to stay living or working in the villages of the Priorat region, which was the poorest in Catalonia," Just recalls. They told them to leave, but at the same time, without realizing it, they instilled in them an appreciation for the land. And so many left, pursued studies and professional careers, and when they realized they didn't like it, they returned home. "I worked doing statistics to work with prediction models for companies, but this job didn't fulfill me, so I decided to leave everything and return home, to Pradell de la Teixeta, where I bought a farm, Mas d'en Rafel, and started from scratch, planting vines," he says. Today his wines are produced under the name San Rafael wineryAt that time, the DO Montsant didn't even exist (it was created in 2001), and the wines produced belonged to the DO Tarragona, Falset sub-zone.

This update will be the biggest innovation for a designation of origin that dedicates 90% of its production to red wines and has established a prestigious position in the market. However, when ordering red wine in a restaurant in Catalonia, the majority of people opt for a Ribera del Duero or a Rioja.

Pilar speaks clearly and understandably. She speaks fluently and highlights the realities she believes are necessary to rebel against. The first is based on her life experience working in Burgundy: "There, they only consume locally made wines; in Champagne, you won't find wines from Italy, and they don't do it because they believe in the place where they live. We, on the other hand, don't believe it, and this fact is an endemic evil that has been going on for many years," she says.

However, Pilar is also optimistic. These days, people ask for a Montsant to refer to a good wine, with personality, and a unique profile. "And that's because the vineyards are grown on very different soils, which can be calcareous, clayey, or sandy." Furthermore, the vineyards in the Montsant DO can be grown at very different altitudes, from 700 meters to 50 meters, with influences from both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. "This richness of the landscape is what results in fresh wines with personality," says Pilar Just.

In her assessment of its twenty-five years of existence, the president of the DO recalls the influence of American influencer Robert Parker. "Of course, we believed in his preferences, which were especially focused on noticing the oak in the wines. That's no longer the case; there's a critical mass made up mostly of the children of winegrowers, who have provided a great deal of dynamism and, at the same time, unity, because we all work together and toward the same goals." In fact, the tasks of a designation of origin, according to its president, are not only control and quality, but also ensuring that the people who dedicate themselves to it earn a living and are involved in the territory.

There are also many other aspects, such as promotion, to which the DO Montsant dedicates a great deal of effort. "We direct it to our natural market, which is our country, but we also have an export vocation," says Just, who notes that sales figures represent 60% of total production in the Catalan market and the rest abroad. "In the beginning, it was easier to export because we were valued more than in our country, where we weren't known." In twenty-five years, everything has changed, but the president of the DO Montsant maintains that the red wines drunk predominantly in restaurants are Rioja and Ribera del Duero. "I see this most in Barcelona, ​​but it's not the case in Reus, where we are very happy because the restaurant menus are made up of wines from the Tarragona DOs," she says. "In contrast, in Barcelona, ​​most restaurant wine lists are made by distributors, who feature wines from large, Spanish brands, not from Catalan wineries, and even less from small ones."

Foreign varieties grafted with own varieties

Among the current challenges are local varieties. "We had foreign varieties because at first our wines were exported en masse, and the market demanded specific wines, but now we're living in the opposite, the opposite," says Pilar, who explains in detail: "Foreign varieties have been grafted with Garnacha, Cariñena, Garnacha Blanca, and Macabeo." So currently, 70% of the grapes in the Montsant DO are native varieties.

More transformations. If in the origins of the Montsant DO, blends of different varieties were almost the norm, today we could say that single-varietal wines are. "This very transformation has given the Montsant DO more identity, more value, and more history, and has contributed to the boom in Montsant wines," because the territory is best expressed through a single-varietal wine.

Continuing, Pilar discusses the rigorous work they've undertaken to study the soils that make up the territory. Deep boreholes have been drilled to reveal what this land is like, and with this information, the Montsant DO has a deeper understanding of what it's like and why its wines are the way they are. "All this knowledge will also allow us to continue with wine tourism, which some wineries have already promoted, because when visitors go to a winery, they'll know what territory they're in, understand the land and the varieties grown, and why the result they enjoy in a glass is so singular and unique compared to other designations of origin." As a winemaker, she would like young people, her children, not to need to leave because they can't earn a living, but to stay because they are passionate about winemaking. "We must ensure that the new generations stay, so that they aren't like us, who our parents told us we had nothing to do."

Finally, the president of the DO Montsant comments on the region's interesting features, such as the famous people who have invested there and the foreign capital established there. Among the famous people, she highlights the singer Joan Manuel Serrat, who, in Pilar Just's words, "didn't do much to promote the designation of origin." Regarding foreign capital, she states that they don't have as much as they do in the DOQ Priorat. "I would only mention three wineries, and that's it," the president concludes.