Rioja has made historical past twice in a single yr. Barely a month after Spain’s oldest designation of origin celebrated its one hundredth birthday, DOCa Rioja’s Regulatory Council has elected Raquel Pérez Cuevas as its first feminine president.
‘It’s an honour to be the primary feminine president of the Regulatory Council – though I gained’t be the one one, as girls have gotten ever extra current in [the wine industry],’ Pérez Cuevas stated.
Challenges forward
Throughout her four-year time period as president, Pérez Cuevas will reply to greater than 13,000 growers and practically 600 wineries registered within the Rioja designation of origin. She’ll be tasked with main Rioja by means of a tumultuous interval. Overproduction and a decline in gross sales have triggered each grape and bottle costs to plummet previously a number of vintages, and plenty of growers and producers worry a scarcity of generational continuity as fewer younger folks be a part of the wine trade.
The election comes throughout a politically fraught time for the area. On the finish of Could, Pérez Cuevas was chosen as president of Grupo Rioja, a strong affiliation of huge wineries that accounts for practically 90 p.c of the appellation’s complete gross sales. She had served as Grupo Rioja’s vice-president since 2015.
Pérez Cuevas might want to handle tensions between her personal Grupo Rioja and small- and medium-sized wineries, a few of whom consider Rioja’s Regulatory Council has traditionally favoured the pursuits of huge producers. In 2023, Bodegas Familiares de Rioja (an affiliation of round 200 wineries) went as far as to surrender its seats on the Regulatory Council, accusing Rioja of working below ‘a purely financial system primarily based on gross sales quantity’. Though Pérez Cuevas was elected with 99% of the vote, the Asociación de Bodegas de Rioja Alavesa (ABRA) voted towards her, whereas each the Asociación de Bodegas por la Calidad (ABC) and Araex selected to abstain.
Pérez Cuevas with outgoing president Fernando Ezquerro. Credit score: DOCa Rioja
Constructing bridges
‘I’ve met, I’ve spoken with, and most significantly, I’ve listened to all of the associations in our council,’ Pérez Cuevas stated in her first speech as president. ‘It’s necessary for me to have the ability to proceed relying on all of you on this new period, the place I want to see dialogue, involvement, debate, unity – which isn’t the identical as uniformity – and loyalty to the appellation that has made us who we’re, in order that Rioja continues to occupy the place it deserves on the earth of wine,’ she added.
Initially from the village of Quel in southeastern Rioja, Pérez Cuevas studied agricultural engineering on the Universidad Pública de Navarra and oenology on the Universidad de La Rioja, in addition to an Govt MBA on the Universidad Pontificia Comillas. She has been CEO of her household’s vineyard, Bodegas Ontañón, since 2010. Underneath her management, LaRioja.com experiences, Ontañón has expanded to different wine areas equivalent to Rueda and Ribera del Duero.
Pérez Cuevas thanked former president Fernando Ezquerro and her colleagues within the trade for the belief they’ve positioned in her. ‘Our work begins immediately. We have now some thrilling years forward of us, and probably the most stunning and strong initiatives on the earth of wine,’ she concluded.
