Júlia Colom (Valldemossa, 1997) went in search of the melodies that were sung in the villages of Mallorca. From that search emerged Sempre dijous (Joan Porcel, 2020), award for best national documentary at the In-Edit Festival, and the foundation for the albums Miramar (2023) and Paradís (2025), best album of the year according to the critics of Enderrock.

A spicy wine made in California awakened her mind and made her dive into her culinary memory linked to the garden since childhood. Back then she lived between Terrassa and Bagà. “It was very chemical, it had spicy sensations, but without a trace of pepper. We planted four varieties of chili pepper and dared to make one.” Isa Serra is the director of Vall Llach, but her connection with Priorat has been forged through l’Horta Colomer, a space for biodynamic crops in the heart of Porrera, where white carignan vines coexist with vegetables, spices, fruit trees, and geese.

On July 4th, Celler Masroig will kick off the first edition of Les Sorts d'Estiu, a new proposal that aims to vindicate the value of summer nights in Priorat through wine, gastronomy, and live music. The initiative is born with the intention of offering an experience open to all audiences, capable of uniting tradition and celebration in a privileged environment with wine and cava at the center of it all. An invitation to take a break and share quality time in one of the most emblematic wine landscapes in the country.

With wine, the theory is clear: the hotter it gets, the more sugars the grapes can accumulate. Given that during fermentation these sugars will end up being transformed into alcohol, if it has been a year of great heatwaves, presumably the alcoholic strength of the wine will also be high. However, very alcoholic wines are not to everyone's taste, and even less so now that the heat is arriving. Faced with this, wineries are devising ways to also offer wines that significantly reduce alcohol, regardless of whether the vineyard has had to endure very high temperatures. Several Catalan wineries are already making wines or drinks that can be assimilated to wine, almost all of them white, ranging between 6% and 9.5% alcohol. They are an intermediate point between Mediterranean wines, with an alcohol content that can reach 15%-16%, and de-alcoholized wines, which become 0.0 if all the alcohol is removed. The aim is to respond to the trend of drinking less without giving up aroma and taste, which can diminish greatly in the processes to transform them into 0.0, and at the same time offer lower-alcohol wines without so much technological intervention.

Pol López (Barcelona, 1984) has been Hamlet, Vladimir, Alceste and Raskolnikov. He also played Ivan in Suro (Mikel Gurea, 2022), a role that earned him the Gaudí for best male protagonist in 2023. And the endearing Os in La furgo (Eloy Calvo, 2025). He now has two fronts open: Mal de coraçon, at the Villarroel until June 21 – a play with which the Company Solitària says goodbye to the stage – and La desconocida (Gabe Ibáñez), which has just premiered on Netflix, in which López plays a Gaditan agent alongside Candela Peña.

The Denomination of Origin (DO) Cava faces decisive hours for its future after eight years of Javier Pagés' presidency. This Thursday, June 11, the twelve members who form the plenary of the Regulatory Council, the body representing the different agents in the sector, will meet at the Vilafranca del Penedès headquarters to elect who will be the maximum leader – as well as the vice-president – of the DO that exports the most from Spain, but which at the same time is not going through its best moment.

The singer Maria Jaume (Lloret de Vistalegre, 1999) is one of the emerging voices in Catalan music, with a proposal that combines joy and rootedness: songs that draw from popular culture without losing sight of social concerns or giving up the freshness of pop. In her latest album, Sant Domingo forever, released in February, she pays a joyful and honest tribute to her town's main festival.Sant Domingo Forever is an album animated for such internationally turbulent months…

Alba Segarra (la Fuliola, 1992) has a WhatsApp group that she uses to send each other audios with ideas that sometimes seem brilliant to her and others incomprehensible. The warm-up act for Versió RAC1 and stand-up comedian considers herself a workaholic, a way of relating to the world that, she assures, comes from home.

I am at a party dedicated to wine, with all sorts of farmers who have dressed up for the celebration and where the care of the landscape by those who dedicate themselves to it is celebrated.

Toni Aira (Barcelona, 1977) is a journalist, doctor in communication and director of the master's degree in political communication at UPF Barcelona School of Management. One of the country's leading experts in political communication, and author of Mitólogos. El arte de seducir a las masas (Debate, 2025), Aira knows from personal experience why some politicians cover their glass on the second round.

Casa Rufo opened just before Easter and I already hear diners saying "it's delicious", while confirming that "all dishes enter the kitchen clean". Lleonard Cardona Rufo is a self-taught cook; he has learned from his parents, who first worked in a butcher shop and then at Casa Jesús, in Cases d’Alcanar. In the same place, but with a completely renewed concept, he insists on saying that he has opened a wine bar, but that you can also "eat" there. "In the "terreno", we always eat very well, from the garden, from the sea... and when you hear "delicious", you can rest assured", he shares. "My parents were artists. They made breakfasts, a menu for workers, and à la carte, both at midday and at night", he recalls. He has copied their format a bit, without lunches. At Casa Rufo, he offers a hearty breakfast, vermouth, and small plates at night. There is often a queue because, for the moment, he does not take reservations. He is open from Thursday to Sunday.

We interviewed the sommelier and communicator Meritxell Falgueras (Barcelona, 1981) in her native neighborhood, which she has called the Soho of Barcelona in her novels: the Sants neighborhood. We meet at Bodega Bartolí and afterwards we will go to the family shop, Celler de Gelida, where we will meet her brother Ferran and her father, Toni Falgueras. Meritxell has just published the book Women of Wine (Planeta Gastro), in which she has included studies, interviews, and surveys to which she has dedicated four years of her life.

Alberto Gadel (Santa Cristina d'Aro, 2004) became known on TikTok for creating content in Catalan when almost nobody else was. With a provocative touch and a language that jumps from masculine to feminine and from Catalan to Spanish and English, Gadel presented 3Cat's Espai Eufòria with Aina da Silva, and presents the Loft with Gal·la Castellfort. Like many people of his generation, the beginnings of his relationship with wine have a clear name: Vinya del Mar.Let's start here.

The guitarist and singer Xavi de la Iglesia (Barcelona, 1979) has defined the sound of contemporary Catalan song for fourteen years with Blaumut. The group is saying goodbye for an indefinite period with a tour that will end on October 17th at the Sala Apolo in Barcelona. De la Iglesia understands the world of music as a boundless field, where dialogue with other disciplines – among which wine is included – can be nourishing.

Although she has been living in Vilafranca del Penedès for ten years and has established deep ties there, Anna Roig (Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, 1981) does not feel entirely like a Vilafranca native, and that is fine with her. The singer, who was the voice of Anna Roig i L'Ombre de Ton Chien, assures that she will never be what in local slang is known as VTV –Vilafranca from all her life–, because the place from which she knows stories and genealogies is her native Sant Sadurní. A place where she not only discovered her artistic vocation, but where she also participated in the family business.

After a series of twists and turns, and enjoying the beauty of Priorat, both humble and exuberant, I arrive at the Clos de l’Obac winery. Carles Pastrana receives us at the entrance. He is an affable and amusing man. We joke, because by profession he was also a journalist, but life had other plans for him: to be part of the revolution that the region would experience. A region that went from misery to creating some of the most valued wines in the world. To achieve this, the blend was as follows: many years of work and doing things according to his criteria, a pinch of recklessness, and two strokes of luck.

At 82 years old, Albert Boadella (Barcelona, 1943) does not stop working. He has finished a second version, adapted to the new times, ofEl retablo de las maravillas, and the theatrical adaptation of the bookJoven, no me cabree, published in 2022. The founder of Els Joglars has turned all sacred symbols into the object of his irreverence. Including, of course, Ferran Adrià's cuisine.¿Why did he parody El Bulli?

“The first wine list at the restaurant was made by Ester Nin. Everything I know, she has taught me. Drinking and tasting together, asking her many questions, and me being very persistent and her very generous”. Sincere and direct, that’s how sommelier Litus Raga is, who is retiring after twenty years at the helm of the dining room at La Cooperativa restaurant, in Porrera. “I still have an unpaid invoice from the first day; they were a group of very generous winemakers, but they never remembered to pay it”, he shares with a smile. “Working has been a hobby”, he states upfront. And then: “Whoever hasn’t come all these years, I don’t expect them before I say goodbye”. The last service will coincide with the upcoming Fira del Vi de Falset. He has clear ideas and is one of those sommeliers who, by reading gestures and looks, knows what each table needs, attending to the honest and sincere cuisine of Mia Vall Grau. A floral shirt – a choice surely unconscious but matching the tablecloth – and always precise and often sharp words. They serve as his shield to serve: “There are wines that haven’t moved since the beginning, Vall Llach, Cims de Porrera, Clos Mogador... But from classicism, we have opened windows to new ideas and concepts like those of Nin Ortiz and Terroir al Límite, to whites, to brisados, to bubbles. We have been selecting projects that dialogue with La Cooperativa’s cuisine, with civets, fricandós and roasts. From body, structure, and over-extraction, we have moved to wanting lightness. I think the DOQ Priorat wineries have approached Mia’s stews”, he shares without complexes.

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.

Fran Tudela (la Vila Joiosa, 1996) became known on social networks by imitating English teachers and Valencian mothers. Today, with almost 200,000 followers on Instagram, Cabrafotuda –as he is known– has become one of the reference content creators in the Catalan language, and has made Valencian popular culture his territory: parties, traditions, grandma's cooking and, above all, the diversity of a language that changes its name for each thing from one town to another. Drinks are no exception.There is a very close relationship between Valencian popular culture and drink.