The history of spas is closely linked to the use of medicinal waters and the evolution of ancient bathing spaces into new centers for health, rest, and summer holidays. They were also a new economic activity and a true industry, which knew how to turn the properties of the waters into a business linked both to the stay of the bathers and to the commercialization of their products. Some establishments even went as far as bottling their waters to market them. A part of these establishments had their origin in springs known for centuries, while others were born as a result of the expansion of the spa culture that, during the second half of the 19th century, spread throughout Europe.

When speaking of the origins of the Catalan pharmaceutical industry, the narrative usually focuses almost exclusively on Barcelona. This is a logical association. Companies like Uriach, Viñas, or Esteve, along with the establishment of the first German pharmaceutical multinationals, eventually turned the Catalan capital into the main drug production center in Spain. However, this view often sidelines a little-known but highly significant phenomenon: the role played by the Tarragona region, and particularly Reus, in the early stages of this industrial activity.

It doesn't seem so long ago when it was common to consider Priorat wines as low-grade, only serving to give alcohol content and body to other wines or, in the best of cases, for bulk consumption. A historically widespread idea outside our regions, although even here there were those who defended it as a fighting wine. But, in reality, the good reputation of Priorat wines is not relatively recent. In fact, the possibilities for retail sales, as well as exports of this generic designation, were already part of the business concerns of a good handful of entrepreneurs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Officially registering the designation, especially for the retail market, would become the obsession of some producers and marketers of the time.

In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Augusto de Muller y Ruinart de Brimont (1829-1893) arrived in Tarragona from Reims. Belonging to a prominent winemaking family from Alsace, De Muller sought an area in Spain untouched by the phylloxera plague, where he focused his activities on the production and export of wines. The volume of his international sales, with branches in Bordeaux and London, made him the leading businessman in Tarragona during his time, a city where, for much of the first third of the 20th century, the wine trade was the main economic driver, overshadowed by other, far less significant, activities. The port of Tarragona became De Muller's export hub.