Perelada celebrates its centenary this year after having exceeded the pre-pandemic figures in 2022. In 2022, the Empordà winery increased its turnover by 10% compared to the figure for 2019, reaching over 20 million euros. This year they expect to grow another 10%, reaching sales that would exceed 22 million euros. They already export 32% of their wines and cavas. They have proposed that exports grow by 60% in just 3 years after strengthening their sales team. They hope to strengthen their presence in international markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan and China.
55% of Perelada’s sales are concentrated in Catalonia and 13% in the rest of the national market. 51% of its production (around five million bottles per year) are cavas, and the rest are still wines. The turnover of the Perelada Group, which also has wineries from Ronda, La Rioja or Navarra to Priorat and where 16 million bottles are made, was 64 million euros, a figure also above the pre-pandemic figure. On the other hand, the new Pescador winery, where they will produce the largest volume wines and locate their central warehouse, has already begun to be built in Vilamalla. The planned investment amounts to 20 million euros. They hope to open it in March 2024.
Perelada has announced that positioning itself as a leader in sustainability is its main strategic objective. The new stage, as explained by its president, Javier Suqué, will focus on working to “be a benchmark in sustainability and continue to grow in quality”. In the coming years they will advance in the extension of regenerative agriculture practices, which take care of the health of the land by maintaining, stimulating and regenerating its fertility and biodiversity. In 2025 all its vineyards will already have organic farming certification. They are also working on expanding irrigation with water recovered from the treatment plant or semi-subterranean irrigation. In addition, it has been announced that they are looking for farms located at higher altitudes, more humid areas or varieties resistant to drought and high temperatures to combat the effects of climate change. The intention to have wineries in appellations of origin such as Ribera del Duero (where they already own 44 hectares of vineyards), Bierzo, Ribeira Sacra or Rías Baixas has been announced. In the short term, they rule out investing in wineries located outside of Spain.
At the same time, they will use lighter bottles (with a weight less than 100 grams than usual), with a rough texture and 100% recyclable. In the next 5 years they plan to launch more than 200 sustainable initiatives. Javier Pagés has stated that “we have already added four generations of ours to promote a project that excites us”. He also recalled that the culture of wine in Perelada dates back to the 14th century, when the Carmelite friars of the Convento del Carme made wine to supply the entire region.
The events to celebrate the centenary of the winery founded in 1923 by Miquel Mateu Pla will begin next May with an exhibition and immersive tastings at the Ideal digital arts center in Barcelona. It will be a party that is announced as “memorable” in which it is intended to transport visitors to Perelada, “to its spirit and its history.” To celebrate the centenary, Perelada is launching a wine this year (a thousand bottles of the most exclusive product produced to date by the Suqué Mateu family, made with Garnacha and Syrah) and a commemorative Guarda Superior cava, as well as the new L’Amfitrió wines and L’Obsequi. The culmination of the centenary will be a first congress of Mediterranean wineries, which will be held during the first quarter of 2024 in Perelada.
The centenary comes after the inauguration last year of the new large winery where Perelada produces its most iconic wines in the Empordà. It is a colossal but sustainable construction of 18,200 m2 integrated into the landscape, the work of the Olot RCR architectural firm. In the words of the architect Rafael Aranda, from the famous office awarded in 2017 with the Pritzker prize, “the visitor enters different atmospheres from emotion, understanding the respect with which each phase of the process of creating wine is approached. Anyone who enters the new winery will feel that this land of wines is giving them a visit with soul”. The least visual impact and functionality have prevailed in this new winery, the first in Europe to have achieved the LEED Gold seal (the most prestigious sustainability certification in the world).
With the new winery in which 40 million euros have been invested, and which is unique in Europe, they are firmly committed to the wine tourism business. A total of 17,000 people (2,000 professionals) have already visited it since June last year. The complex that surrounds the new winery adds an outstanding and demanding 18-hole golf course, its catering offer that has up to three restaurants and spaces for business and private events with the advice of chef Paco Pérez, another restaurant with a Michelin star , a 5-star hotel with 64 rooms, a wine spa where wine therapy is offered, its famous Castell de Perelada music festival, a historic park with 7,7000m2 of gardens designed by François Duvillers and a 14th-century medieval castle flanked by two imposing towers and a church and Gothic cloister (Monasterio del Carme). They also have a gambling casino, a library with incunabula, a museum with collections of ceramics and glass, and the exhibition of the Hispano Suiza automobile brand, founded in 1904 by the great-grandfather of the current owners, Damián Mateu, and by the Swiss engineer Marc Birkigt. Javier Suqué affirms that “Perelada is much more than a winery”. Throughout the last century, its wines have fallen in love with characters such as the artist Salvador Dalí or the US president Dwight D. Eisenhower. His rosé xampany was his first major commercial success.
