The Generalitat is launching an unprecedented offensive in the wine sector to assess whether grapes are being purchased below their production cost. As ARA has learned, the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food is investigating a total of 50 contracts suspected of infringing the Food Chain Law 16/2021, the state-level regulation that prohibits this practice. As sources close to the department point out, the inspections began in August, some of which were prompted by complaints from farmers, organizations, or other professionals in the sector, and others initiated ex officio.

We interview the president of the DO Cava, Marta Vidal (Puigdàlber, 1984), in the town where she lives, Vilanova i la Geltrú. She took office on June 11th, after elections she won against four other candidacies. Marta Vidal is also the general director of the Vallformosa winery, which brings between ten and twelve million bottles of cava to the market annually. Her father, Vicenç Vidal, is one of the winery's shareholders, and it was the partners who proposed to the father that he give the position of general director to his daughter, who was educated at Pompeu Fabra University, Esade, and has work experience in banking, specifically at Bankinter. When she was thirty years old, she left everything and went to live in the USA, in San Francisco and New York. Upon her return, in 2017, she joined the winery, located in Vilobí del Penedès. Marta Vidal arrives at the interview prepared with written pages, with underlined phrases, and with a very clear discourse, which she summarizes with constant words: dialogue, future, and sustainability.

The country's main wine-growing organizations are joining forces against the "abusive" purchase prices expected in this year's harvest. In a joint statement collected this Thursday by Unió de Pagesos, the associations denounce that the compensation being discussed in the sector by large wineries such as Jaume Serra – part of the García Carrión group – and other producers, such as Celler Can Pagès or Vins Font, are around 0.3 euros per kilogram of grapes, a figure that is less than half the reference production cost of between 0.53 and 0.56 euros per kilo established by the Institut Català de la Vinya i el Vi (Incavi).

The Catalan wine sector has already begun the grape harvest campaign in some areas of the country with clearly more positive prospects than in the last three seasons. Spring rains and the fact that summer temperatures are, on average, lower than in recent years have facilitated the regeneration of the vineyards: "It will be much better than last year and two and three years ago," says Josep Marrugat, head of vineyards and wine at the agricultural union Unió de Pagesos.