During the Barcelona Wine Week, I often come across this slogan: Catalunya on el vi ès cultura. Translated: Catalonia, where wine is culture. It is a campaign by the Catalan Ministry of Agriculture and the Catalan Institute of Viticulture and Wine to promote Catalan wine. The campaign was launched late last year.
8.500 wine makers
The campaign brings together all the D.Os (Domición de Origen, the quality wine regions) of Catalonia. Catalonia has 11 of them: Emporda, Pla de Bages, Alella, Penedes, Cava, Costers del Segre, Conca de Barbera, Montsant, Priorato, Tarragona and Terra Alta.
More than 53% of Catalan municipalities have vineyards. In total, there are more than 750 wineries and 8,500 vintners in this part of Spain. Together, these produce 340 million bottles of wine a year: 90 non-sparkling wines and 250 sparkling wines. 50% of these are sold in Catalonia the rest mainly in Spain itself and in Western Europe.
More than half organic
The quality of Catalan wine has risen rapidly in recent decades and modernisation is also going fast; today, more than half of the area of Catalan vineyards is organic.
Want to see more of this campaign? You can watch the video here (in Catalan…)