The History

To start the history of the Cooperative you have to go back to the beginning of the 20th century. In 1901, the Gandesa vineyards were devastated by Phylloxera. The farmers, then, decided to plant vineyards with American roots and to produce their own wine, and so they needed wineries. They opted for agrarian cooperativism as a way to increase the involvement of farmers, avoiding the emigration of the population to the cities and also for the improvement of public schools.

48 families, 20 pesetas, 50 kilos

This is how the Agricultural Cooperative was founded with 48 families, among which the owners of medium properties predominate. The Founding Act set out the conditions for joining the Cooperative: being from the town and contributing 20 pesetas and land (if they did not have them, they contributed their work) and they had to weigh more than 50 kilos, to avoid the work of minors.

A loan and a good architect

The first partners mortgaged land and properties to request a loan from the Valls Bank. On February 19, 1919, Josep Maria Serres (founder and first president of the 'Sindicat') and Jaume Fontanet (member of the board) commissioned the construction project to the modernist architect Cèsar Martinell. The building was made with the collaboration of cooperative members who were involved to build it with their own hands.

A living history of up to 700 members

Throughout the history of the cooperative, 700 was the maximum number of members. At the end of the Civil War, many farmers saw their properties diminished and they were forced to emigrate and the population decreased. To try to save the business and, incidentally, avoid the flight of farmers, they considered making a vermouth, patenting it and packing it in small bottles at an affordable price. The building has also been transformed: the new facilities, located on a site adjacent to the winery built a hundred years ago, have allowed modernizing processes and have freed the modernist space from the bulk of the wine industry. A space, now, destined almost exclusively to wine tourism.