Raïmat

The winery "Viñedos Raïmat" is located in the Spanish DO Costers del Segre. The DO was only established or classified in 1938 at the instigation of the winery or its parent company Codorníu. It was founded in 1914 by Manuel Raventós, who acquired a large, stony land area of 3,200 hectares in the province of Lleida (Lérida) with a dilapidated castillo. The name is derived from the Catalan words "Raïm" (grape) and "mà" (hand). For centuries, wine had been grown there, but it was abandoned at the end of the 19th century due to the phylloxera catastrophe. Raventós realised that the Aragón Canal, built in 1910, would make vast stretches of land fertile again. In decades of arduous work, the formerly desert-like and salty soil was cultivated for viticulture. Hundreds of hectares of land with healthy soil have been filled up and a modern irrigation system has been created using the river Ebro and its tributaries. With the support of the University of California at Davis, the ideal grape varieties were identified. At the same time a village with 100 farmhouses, reservoirs and roads was built and workers were settled. The bodega was opened in 1918 as the first building in Spain built of reinforced concrete. In 1930, some 300 hectares were planted with vines that produced 6,000 hectolitres of wine. Around 250 kilometres of canals and drainage systems provided good artificial irrigation.