Carles Xuriguera: "During the week I'm in the vineyard and on the weekends I'm on stage."

Recapitulating what he said the Fel Faixedas in this sectionIt's already been three or four years since the first wines from the Empordà region were made. What's the current state of wine production?

— A lot has happened. So much so that I'm already working on another project. These vines were in the Empordà region, and now I'm working on another project in the Vallès region, with a smaller vineyard, 4 hectares. It's all very familiar, it's my life. The Empordà project excited me a lot, but it wasn't feasible because it was impractical and made my family suffer, so I decided to get involved in a project closer to home.

Have the hectares you now cultivate started to produce?

— Yes, it was a project of my friend Adrià Garriga, who passed away a couple of years ago. It was the Cinc Quarteres project, and I did it with Ángela, his wife. I don't intend to continue Adrià's project, because it was a project very much his and Ángela's, but the truth is that we share a common passion for viticulture, and it wasn't difficult for me to adapt. But for me, those vineyards are still Adrià's; I just care for them with all my love and think about him a lot.

You are taking care of the vineyards of someone who is no longer here and in the theater you perform the play The mothers, about someone who is not there either.

— Wow, I hadn't thought of that, and it seems like an interesting prospect! In the end, what are we here to do? To continue something we like, something that makes sense, but we don't have anything. We follow the work of others who've started, and you cling to a tradition, to values, to a way of doing things. There are those who decide to make major interventions in wine production, and they end up being self-centered interventions, in which the personality of the winemaker or the owner is more evident than that of the vineyards themselves. What we try to do at Cinc Quarteres is let the wine express itself, without emasculating it. The same thing happens with theater.

How do you combine your two professional routines, on stage and on the field?

— Normally, on the weekend I'm on the theater stages and during the week I'm in the vineyard and doing other field work. Now, these months, starting on Thursday, I would go to the theater for the play. The mothers. But for me, having the opportunity to do both is a true joy; it's freedom. It's being able to do whatever you want. I feel very privileged.

Do you think they have anything in common?

— I always found a common theme in communication and expression: capturing something on stage and in a bottle. The characters we play on stage are also people deeply rooted in the land, and I really like that. And the same goes for wine. I can capture the expression of a piece of land in a bottle. Not just that vineyard, but everything that happens around that vineyard, from what happens underground, in the soil, and above ground. To be able to express this, it's important to understand the tradition and the legacy, because otherwise, you'll be blindly banging your cane and only having a few grape harvests in a lifetime. Therefore, you need documentation of all the knowledge we've accumulated over the centuries we've cultivated this product. We have much greater technical knowledge than my father, for example. It's about putting it at the service of my grandfather's agricultural knowledge.

Apart from being a farmer, you have also served on a jury.

— Yes, I have been a juror in the Guide to Wines of Catalonia And I've learned a lot, but above all, I've met a lot of people, which is perhaps what interested me most. It's normal to hold wine awards: they're also held in the world of theater and film. But for me, they should be held differently. Awards for the sake of awards that only remain in the sector are useless. It's not even promotional. Now the Guide to Wines of Catalonia It no longer goes there, although it still hosts the presentation and awards. For me, what makes it most interesting is that it's a reflection and a tool for Catalan wine, something much more interesting than just awards for the sake of it.

With this overview, what do you think is the current state of the wine sector in Catalonia?

— There are people who would answer this question much better than I can, but I think the answer depends on how we look at it. Overall, it's abundantly clear that Catalan wine has improved. Even so, strange as it may seem, we still have to fight: it's impossible for Catalan wine not to be ahead of other wines in our country. I like wine from all over the world, but I'm clear about my priority. Local companies must be able to survive, and that's why they need their products to be well positioned. Rather than chasing a market for this to happen, what we should do is build a narrative. Not empty words, but rather a bit of philosophy about ourselves. In Catalonia, we have 2,700 years of history with wine, and they must be useful for something. I think they can help us learn many things that we're not doing, but what they're certainly useful for is being able to build a solid argument.