Retire from serving Priorat
“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 bill 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 in all these years, I won’t expect them before I say goodbye”. His last service will coincide with the upcoming Falset Wine Fair. He has clear ideas and is one of those sommeliers who, by reading gestures and glances, knows what each table needs, attending to the honest and sincere cuisine of Mia Vall Grau. A floral shirt – a choice perhaps unconscious but matching the tablecloth – and always precise and often biting words. They serve as his support: “There are wines that haven’t moved since the beginning, the 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 Límit, to whites, to orange wines, 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 believe that the wineries of DOQ Priorat have approached Mia’s stews”, he shares without complexes.
“Clients often ask for a wine they will remember for a long time. And this forces you to recommend by thoroughly reviewing everything you know and never out of obligation”, he reflects. He has always sought the diner's complicity, but hasn't always found it: “You are my guest, you will pay me at the end of the service, let yourself be taken care of”, has been his mantra. “Working with Mia is an intensely intense learning experience. She has a very big heart, she is honest and radical like no one else I have ever known, and she is from Priorat with all that it represents, also for the authenticity of her cuisine”, he says with admiration. He feels dizzy on the first workday without service, but admits he already needs time for himself: “Hospitality is too demanding”. Among his plans, to dine alone, at a discreet table, at La Cooperativa. “I will choose a lamb curry or a guinea fowl or a capipota, and I would drink some of those bubbles that are forbidden or a bottle of Les Manyes”, he confesses. On the music channel, Death is not the end by Nick Cave. And to continue being a stranger in a Priorat that always invites strong emotional bonds.
