At the 2024 London Wine Competition (LWC), Spanish wine producer Cellar Devinssi won a gold medal for their IL-LIA wine.

Celler Devinssi was founded in 2000 by Josep Roca, a Barcelona-based wine merchant and winemaker, who became passionate about the Priorat wine appellation. 

Image: Cellar Devinssi

Priorat is in the Catalonia region of northeast Spain and in 2000 the DOQ Priorat was re-emerging as an up-and-coming wine region.

Josep saw a great opportunity to start making his wines in this unique and privileged place; the first vintages were released by Celler Devinssi in 2003 and in 2004 they produced IL·LIA and Mas de les Valls. 

In 2003 Josep Roca acquired an old Carignan slope in Gratallops to start producing a unique wine: Rocapoll (100% Carignan). Rocapoll was produced to pay homage to Josep's father, whose name was Josep Roca Poll who was a keen wine lover and had dreamed of making wine. 

In 2020 the company acquired another old Carignan vineyard in Gratallops, allowing the company to increase production of the Rocapoll to 600 bottles a year. 

Like most wineries in Priorat, Celler Devinssi exports wine to different countries around the world and they have also become one of the most visited wineries in the area; visitors can explore the boutique winery and taste wines in the middle of the vineyard.

Given the company’s expansion plans and successes over the last 24 years, they were keen to gain some independent validation of the quality of their wines. 

The owner had heard about the LWC and decided to submit entries for the 2024 competition to help provide more support to their importer's sales activity and also to send some good news to their clients. 

Image: Team (L-R) Josep Roca - management, production, and design; Jordi Ustrell - wine tours, PR, exports and Sergi Romero - vineyard and winery tasks

Although the company was delighted with the gold award, it is too early for them to assess the full impact, but as the winery’s CEO, Jordi Ustrell, said: “It has contributed to our confidence. Cellar-door sales of 2020 IL·LIA are thriving.” 

News of the prestigious award was posted to their LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook accounts and very soon after the win, they updated their Google profile. 

They also posted a blog entry about the award in Catalan, Spanish, English, and French [https://devinssi.com/en/il%c2%b7lia-2020-doq-priorat-gold-medal-by-the-london-wine-competition/] 

A company newsletter was sent to their clients and other stakeholders and shared across their social media platforms.

The company’s overall impression of the competition was very positive. Jordi explained: “We would like to highlight the clear guidelines on wine submission, attractive early-bird submission policy, user-friendly interface, and well-articulated deadlines. 

[[relatedPurchasesItems-38]]

“We were pleased to acknowledge the newsletter frequency to be well-timed. At no point did it feel either overwhelming or scant.” 

The tasting notes sent from the judges were also very well received and found to be extremely helpful.

Looking to the future, the company would like to increase export sales to countries including the UK, the Netherlands, German-speaking countries, the EU, and the USA.