Wine in the history of Conca de Barberà

The evolution of wine producing in Conca de Barberà is tightly related to the region's evolution. Its most remote antecedents are found in Roman times, and possible before. But during the Arab occupation, the vineyards practically disappeared from the territory because the Koran prohibits its cultivation. It isn't until the Middle Ages when the cultivation of grapevines becomes of first importance.

In the XII Century, Conca Lands started to be colonised by Catalonians. Two institutions, the Cistercian Monk Order of the Santa María de Poblet abbey and the Templar warrior-monks that were established in Barberà, transmitted to the countrymen their knowledge and experience about the most advantageous and adequate way to cultivate vineyards to obtain the best wine. These teachings from the monks, transmitted from fathers to sons as well, have remained until today.

The grapevine cultivation in Conca de Barberà has achieved making a giant step towards the end of the XVIII Century and, especially, half way through the XIX Century. The export of wine and liquor in the north of Europe and the American continent made the vineyard the region's exclusive cultivation. It was during this time that terraces and spurs were constructed in the mountains to obtain the maximum amount of cultivating soil. It was also when a railway between Reus and Montblanc was built for transferring wines from Conca de Barberà to Tarragona sea ports in a quicker and more economical way.

With the spread of the filoxeric plague throughout the region towards the end of the XIX Century, the time of splendour was annihilated. But the region’s wine growers, making an enormous effort, knew how to remerge with a renovated strength. Conca de Barberà was a pioneer in Catalonia, and in the rest of Spain, in grouping the countrymen in agricultural co-operatives linked basically to wine producing.

This way, in 1894, the countrymen of the village of Barberà founded a trade union for elaborating their wine in common. Under the influence of Joan Espulgas – an owner that learned how to combat the filoxeric plague after a trip to France – the Barberà trade union begins to replant the vineyards in Conca. Their success exceeded their effort, and in 1903 the first building of the new plant in the whole state was erected conceived as a co-operative winery in the town of Barberà.

A little after, Josep M. Rendé, from l’Espluga de Francolí, turned into the co-operative movement leader in the region and motivated the construction of a winery of his town in 1912. It is also fit to mention that Joan Poblet i Teixidó, a lawyer and journalist from Montblanc, promoted, in the press of the time, the wine growers to associate, and the lawyer Albert Talavera also motivated a co-operative federation for the council of the co-operatives of the region.