Behind the vine

Daphne Glorian - Clos I Terrasses – Gratallops, Priorat

When do you think you fell in love with wine, enough to make a career of it?

I fell in love with wine after a few months on the job for an English wine merchant. I was just starting in the wine business, had never drank wine before and was lucky to get my first job with a company representing some of the best Burgundy wines.

What story does your wine tell?

A crazy adventure which brought back an amazing wine region from oblivion.

The story of Priorat as a region is that in the 19th century the wines enjoyed a fairly good reputation, but the production of the Priorat was in a large part shipped away to reinforce wines lacking tannins and alcohol. After a series of events (phylloxera, a plague), the region started emptying, as working in the factories of Barcelona was the only option. Some people replanted their vineyards but using mostly Carignan which is more productive than Grenache, hence the fairly large proportion of Carignan today.

The region limped along, having lost over half of its production capacity and selling the wines in bulk. Then came the civil war and Franco who promoted the collective system of production, aka cooperatives. The change from quality to quantity - although quantity in the Priorat is a relative concept – was complete. Many of the growers had moved away to the city and came to the Priorat one weekend a month to tend to their vineyards and sold their grapes to the coops. In the late 80’s it was a pretty desolate region: poor, depopulated, without hope for the locals to making a living off their grapes.

Then these crazy people from the outside world (Rene, Alvaro, Josep Lluis and myself) showed up and decided that there was potential there to make great wines and restore the Priorat to its former glory. Our pride today is that when success hit in the 90’s, the children of the farmers who had emigrated decided to come back and work the family vineyards and make wine. Today there is only one coop and 100 private cellars. There is also a school in every village and people are again proud of their region. To me, this is the success, more than making a famous wine.

What misconceptions about wine do you think people should forget?

That wine is reserved for connoisseurs. Ask the people in wine producing countries, wine used to be an everyday beverage, safer than water.

What great things about wine do you think people should remember?

The tremendous diversity, you can drink wine every day of your life and make a new discovery every day. If you don’t like one, try another one.

What is a piece of advice you would give to a woman interested in breaking into the wine world?

It really is not any more difficult for a woman to make it in the wine world than in other industries. If you are fascinated by the process, whether it’s growing plants or the biological aspect of it, just do it. You will never get bored, every vintage is a new start!

Where can women find your wine?

In the UK, you can buy from The Sourcing Table. In Spain, we are in wine shops and restaurants.