Over 100 years
At the turn of the 20th century, the agricultural cooperative was an effective economic organisation for dealing with the crisis that had been affecting the sector since the last third of the 19th century. Phylloxera had seriously damaged the Catalan vineyards. A single British ship had brought phylloxera over from America. This insect destroyed the French vineyards and spread throughout Europe. It is said to have appeared in Empordà in 1879 and 20 years later it swept through Terra Alta and other Catalan wine regions.
s. XX
Castell d’Or’s origins
The cooperative was a strategy of mutual support that revolutionised the Catalan countryside, bringing together large landowners and small growers. It became an unstoppable force that resulted in the modernisation and strengthening of the sector, helping it to survive an unprecedented crisis. This recovery was symbolized in art and engineering in the form of the “cathedrals of wine”. Modernism spread from the cities to the countryside and taught us a valuable lesson: how working together can result in improvement and progress.
The Cooperative
More than a hundred years of love for wine
A new generation of architects, disciples of the main representatives of modernism, created the “cathedrals of wine”, intended to optimise productivity and the quality of the wine. In addition to being majestic works of architecture, they represented great progress in terms of industrial engineering in the rural world. These imposing edifices, which are still astounding today, are the perfect embodiment of the Cooperatives’ spirit of survival when faced with difficulties. Castell d’Or is the legacy of this spirit of survival and love of the land.
Cathedrals of wine
Protecting our heritage
The Cooperativa Agrícola de Barberà de la Conca is one of the wineries with a long history. Founded in 1894, it is the result of the union of two entities that had existed in the local area before the Civil War. On the one side, the Sociedad Agrícola de Barberà and, on the other, the Sindicat Agrícola de Barberà, which merged in 1934 in compliance with the Cooperatives Act. From the former, the Cooperativa Agrícola de Barberà de la Conca gained the honour of being the first cooperative winery in Catalonia, and from the latter, the magnificent modernist winery, the work of the architect Cèsar Martinell, a disciple of Gaudí, The cooperative movement brought the villages’ growers together and even helped to bring the villages themselves closer to each other.
1894
The Cooperativa Agrícola de Vila-rodona dates back to 1919 and boasts more than a century of history. It is a magnificent example of modernist architecture, located along the Cistercian Route, next to the monastery of Santes Creus. It is the work of the architect from Valls, Cèsar Martinell.
Fields of life and passion
1919
Gaudí-style wineries
Agrícola de la Conca was born from the merger of the Cooperativa de Viticultores de Solivella SCCL and the Agrícola del Espluga y Sección de Crédito SCCL. Its history dates back to the turn of the 20th century. The growers lacking working tools and resources found a way to promote their interests and their sector by joining forces. Thus it was that, in 1901, the Sociedad Agrícola de Solivella was founded, with its headquarters in Calle del Hospital. Shortly afterwards, in 1906, the Agricultural Unions Act was passed, and the organisation adopted the name of Sociedad de Trabajadores Agrícolas de Solivella. Between 1917 and 1930, the Cooperative built up its assets.
1930
From the countryside to your glass
In 2006 a group of Catalan cooperative wineries founded Castell d’Or in order to join forces and work together. The Castell d’Or wines, cavas and oils are the result of the collaborative work of all the Group’s wineries and the know-how that has been passed down to them from generation to generation. That is why we can say that the history of Castell d’Or began long before it was founded as a group.
2006
Nowadays
Castell d’Or has constantly worked to grow and optimise its production processes since it began its activity. Currently, the Group is made up of 16 Cooperatives, whose members represent more than 2,200 families involved in agriculture, working more than 6,200 hectares of vineyards in the Catalonia region. This consolidated group is active in five wine D.O.s and strives to provide consumers all over the world with the finest quality wines and cavas.
