On Sunday, the 28th of July, a fire broke out on the eastern side of the village of la Figuera in Priorat, Catalunya. Fire crews responded and via the efforts of 42 ground crew firefighters, with 12 air crew in support, they were able to extinguish the fire, but not before it burned 17ha of land including the 3.5ha vineyard of El Guixar that belongs to DO Montsant producer, Venus la Universal. Sadly, this lovely, high-elevation Grenache vineyard is the source for their excellent, Venus de la Figuera wine.
The entire region of Priorat has been under Level 4 alert (the highest) under the ‘Pla Alfa’ for most of the past week. This has included the added provision of closing areas to the public including all natural parks due to the exceedingly-high fire risk.
This has been an ongoing issue given the extreme drought in Catalunya that’s been a problem dating back to 2022 and has continued into 2023. While 2024 has seen slightly more rain than 2023, the ground is extremely dry and the cumulative effect, along with temperatures in the 40s and humidity at 20% is to have an extremely volatile, tinderbox situation.
There is an ongoing investigation as to the exact cause of the fire, but it seems to have a manmade origin. There is no inference that it was intentional, but given the dangerous moment, any small spark can set off a large fire, epecially in this zone with sharp cliffs that conduct flames with little issue.
Venus la Universal is jointly owned by winemaking couple Sara Pérez and René Barbier whose parents’ founded Mas Martinet and Clos Mogador, respectively. Thus Pérez has unfortunately been one of the few people in the region to see her vineyards burned twice in Priorat in recent years. In June of 2015, a fire started by lightning scorched the excellent and very scenic, els Escurçons DOQ Priorat vineyard. Most of those vines survived and it gave them an opportunity to expand the plantation size by 1/3 on the charred lands. Unfortunately even though the fire was in June, the resulting wine of that vintage suffered from smoke taint which only became apparent once fermentation finished.
In talking with winery representative for Mas Martinet & Venus la Universal, Roger Valls, he said, “We don’t know the full extent of the damage yet. There are a good number of burnt vines and we’ll have to see if they come back or not, but the vineyard acted as a firebreak and thankfully stopped the fire from reaching the village. But it’s definitely heartbreaking to see the vineyard like this.”
The residents of both la Figuera as well as neighboring la Vilella Baixa were told to confine themselves to their homes for several hours while the fire was being contained as a safety precaution.
I asked la Figuera resident and owner of Ficaria Vins, Jaume Roca if there were any other vineyards affected, “No, thankfully the fire stopped on the east side of the village and didn’t reach us. It unfortunately burned el Guixar quite badly, but it seems that we haven’t had any issues and the smoke didn’t reach our vineyards either.”
The fire was stablized by 18:30 and fully controlled by 00:15 that evening.
It continues to be a dangerous season in the eastern part of Spain. While there have been sufficient rains in the west of the country, the lack of water and high drought conditions makes the risk of large fires ever greater. In fact, additional fires have just broken out in the neighboring Lleida region where they’ve asked residents with tractors for help in controlling the fires. While this region is a bigger producer of grains and olives, there are also considerable vineyards in the affected villages of Ciutadilla and Nalec within DO Costers del Segre and we’ll have to wait to see if there are additional damages.
