The land marked him. He was born and lives in the Garraf region, within the Penedès DO and near the sea, where the wine tradition became strong centuries ago. And there it continues. That’s why gardening or fruit crops couldn’t beat the vineyards. “When I was studying Agricultural Engineering, I was already liking the subject of the vineyard. Then I did Oenology and it was about getting into the subject, starting to work and knowing that it was my thing,” shares Marta, winemaker at the Jaume Serra winery, where her connection with the world of wine, her true passion, has become powerful. “I love experiencing the entire process, from the vine to bottling, and learning every day how to improve to respect and protect the land and the vineyards,” she explains.
And it couldn’t be any other way in a territory like Catalonia, which occupies fifth position in Spain in vineyard area and second in organic vineyard area. “There are about 800 wineries, 8,000 farmers and there are 50,000 vineyard plantations, almost half of which are organic. This means that these vineyards have to be ecologically registered, we have to fertilize in a certain way, do phytosanitary treatments without pesticides or herbicides… It’s all more natural. The vineyard is part of the landscape, our culture and traditions. It always has been. It is a wealth that we like to boast about,” celebrates the winemaker.
From the beginning, Marta has walked her path alongside the Jaume Serra winery, located in Vilanova i la Geltrú (in El Garraf) and attached to the DO Cava, Catalonia and Penedès. A benchmark for its wines and cavas. “She saw me born and I saw her. If here, in Vilanova, she started in 1986, I appeared in 1987, very young and very excited. I was lucky enough to plant vineyards, to install the first machines… It was another world, there was no such technology as we do today. We have gone hand in hand, me looking for quality and García Carrión (owner group) betting on technology.”
Pere Escolar, director of the winery, knows a lot about these origins, whose story begins in Alella, a town about 20 kilometers north of Barcelona. “There, in 1943, Don Jaume Serra Güell founded it. Subsequently, in 1984, the winery moved to where we are now, El Padruell, a 125-hectare estate that also has a fortified farmhouse that dates back to the 17th century.” It was in 1997 when Mr. José García Carrión decided to buy it and incorporate it into the Carrión Group, which, faithful to Jaume Serra’s philosophy, has continued to combine tradition with innovation.
“We must understand that we are in the agri-food sector and that our products and our raw materials come from the earth. No one better than a farmer to take care of it, it is their source of food and also the purest concept of sustainability. From there, as a company, we have developed a strategy that we call Sustainability 360, which encompasses social, environmental and economic issues. This combination has meant that, with this philosophy, seeking sustainability, we apply innovation and technology,” says Pere Escolar.
Sustainability thus becomes a fundamental axis that crosses the entire business strategy of the company, always pioneering and revolutionary in the search for innovative solutions to positively impact our environment. A constant revolution, also in terms of sustainability. “That concern comes from the beginning. There are five generations of a family business, all of them focused on products from our land and the continuity of sustainability,” emphasizes the director of the winery.
In its decarbonization process, the winery group has been accompanied by Endesa and its energy services subsidiary, Endesa with guarantees of 100% renewable origin and, on the other, commissioned the construction and installation of solar self-consumption in nine of its production centers in Spain. With this alliance, Grupo Carrión has become one of the largest corporate self-consumption projects carried out to date and a benchmark for the wine sector. And, as it could not be otherwise, among the centers powered by solar energy and with views of the Mediterranean, is that of Jaume Serra, which has become the winery with the solar plant closest to the sea in Spain.
Endesa vineyards that allow up to 6 million kilos of grapes to be grown each year. Thanks to its production and aging systems, the winery has the capacity to produce 60 million bottles of cava per year and 20 of wine.
Now, these cavas and wines can be produced in a more sustainable way thanks to the solar panels, which have a power of 727 kWp, since all the kilometer 0 energy that is produced is entirely self-consumed, in the same location. “On an environmental level, this represents a reduction of 252 tons of CO2 per year that are no longer emitted into the atmosphere,” explains Jordi Grau, project manager of Endesa X.
Today, 30% of Jaume Serra’s energy consumption comes directly from the solar panels, while the remaining 70% is also renewable energy thanks to the supply agreement they have with Endesa. “This is a sector in which there is a lot of potential: large roofs, warehouses and extensive land that give rise to investing in our renewable energy. An economic and environmental saving,” says Jordi Grau.
Spain has the largest area of ??vineyard cultivation in the world and the wine sector has important territorial roots, which makes it a driving force for environmental conservation and rural development. The large areas of land in the wine sector, or large warehouses with roofs where the roof can be used to install solar panels, make it attractive for the sector to increasingly join solar self-consumption in a country that occupies the third position among the largest wine producers in the world (more than 35 million hectoliters in 2022) and where there are 2,500 hours of sunshine per year. In Catalonia, the wine industry constitutes the third agri-food sector in the territory, with more than 600 bottling wineries and more than 9,000 winegrowers.
Apart from the production of good wine and organic cava, this great step in sustainability is a new reason to celebrate. “It is phenomenal to see how the trend leads us to have everyone, not just us, but the sector, prioritize making this world sustainable. We are all going together: to be more ecological,” Marta emphasizes.
