Sindicat La Figuera

Sindicat La Figuera is a small cooperative in the Montsant Mountains, founded in 1932, and produces wines of clarity and integrity. One has to drive up the mountainside on very narrow, winding roads to reach the town of La Figuera, which is located at an altitude of 600 meters and has only 80 inhabitants. The city appears to rise from the top of the mountain, with the surrounding mountains and the Priorat region in sight in all directions. 

In the early 1930s, when the cooperative was founded, La Figuera was a bustling city; There were 25 residents who were involved in the creation of the winery and who contributed grapes to the first harvest. Garnatxa, as the Catalans call it, has always been planted around La Figuera and has always been the main grape used for Sindicat's flagship wine. While Cariñena is typically blended with Garnatxa in Montsant, La Figuera is known for the beauty and elegance of their pure Garnatxa wines and is one of the few places where it is bottled on its own. The city flourished until the mid-50s, when a major storm devastated the area and a strong frost the following year. Inhabitants fled and many of the vineyards were destroyed and abandoned.

La Figuera never really regained its population, although a few dedicated citizens replanted Garnatxa vines, and there are now only three passionate members who have vowed to keep the cooperative alive. The famous winemaker from Priorat, René Barbier, also took note of the Garnatxa wines of La Figuera and decided to join forces with the members of the cooperative to help make wine. Rene says you can always tell when a wine is from La Figuera because there is a unique limestone content in the soil that makes the Garnatxa lighter. In addition to preserving these special wines, René also wanted to keep alive the heritage of the people's cooperative movement, a movement that began in the post-phylloxera era of Catalonia in the early 20th century.

Sindicat La Figuera works with 25 hectares of Garnatxa Fina and the vines range in age from 20-70 years. Wines are fermented with wild yeasts in underground concrete tanks with minimal temperature control, where they are aged on fine lees for about 9 months before being bottled with light clarification and filtration.