On the 15th and 16th May La Granja de Remelluri (La Rioja) witnessed the #ViticultureEncounter, organized in order to contribute to the recovery of the great Spanish vineyard and the prestige of the rural world. Key people in today’s changing world of wine came to the call of Telmo Rodriguez.

There were more than 150 professionals, wine lovers and winemakers, coming from different Spanish regions and abroad. Some of them were invited to lead a round table. Pepe spoke during one of these round tables with the help of his presentation titled, “The radical modernity of old”. It was an interesting roundtable. Pepe took a critical side while calling for concrete action.

We would like to share here with you, faithful readers of the blog, an excerpt with the most relevant parts of his speech.

“Our dream is that the Valley where we were born, where we work, is recognized in the world of the great sparkling wines. It’s nothing radical, it’s natural”. We are excited with the wisdom of nature, its tendency towards equilibrium. We want to study the geology of our soil, that somehow help us to know ourselves better. We look forward to recovering the ancient culture of our area, generating ecotones and creating biodiversity. I am passionate about farming with animal traction, horsemanship, chickens freely walking in the countryside, generating our own compost with grazing animals…”

We need to evolve towards a model that promotes awareness of the viticultural areas.

If we continue like this, our country will be the quality and price of small vintners struggling to be the hero of the people lost, better than its neighbour. They will be isolated and recognized by few in the wide world while they are young and traveling but no one will remember these artists in the future. And the saddest thing is that now we are not working for our children and grandchildren so that they can be proud of the work we have done. Nor are we working for a strong wine country, able to compete with France or Italy. The thing is that they haven’t better soils, climate, vineyards or tradition, but a much better model.

Those who know me know that I am a romantic, too romantic, but my message today is not poetry. We have not come to share here what we love, what makes us happy, how we love our vineyard and our vines. It is to say out loud what we can contribute, what we have to do, where we are different and good and we can build value our children, grandchildren, neighbours and immigrant families *find a well marked path.”*

A magical encounter in a magical place that will definitely be the first of many steps to go all together.