Venus La Universal is the offspring of the descendants of two (out of five) families that revitalized Priorat and Montsant region back in the 1980’s. Back in 2000, Sara Perez (considered by many the most important woman winemaker in Spain) and René Barbier IV (son of the legendary Priorat pioneer René Barbier III from Clos Mogador) decided to team in vineyards as well as in life, “ placing a bet” not in Priorat, but in the slightly sleepier D.O. of Monsant. They cultivate approximately 10ha of vineyards. In particular, the grapes for Venus come from clay-calcareous soils that encourage a slow, elegant and complex ripeness, while the grapes for Dido come from vineyards with soils based on decomposed granite that are poor in organic matter resulting in grapes with great ripeness and fruit flavors.            

Sarah y Rene work and live at Venus, work at Martinet and Mogador, in the Vinya del Vuit in Gratallops and in Partida Bellvisos project as well. They see the vineyard as being key to sustainability. They understand life from a special perspective and they live according to three premises: “we should be taking care of our environment and the people who live in it and we must be fair at all times”. Use materials which have lower energy costs during their lifetime. Constant research for the traceability of everything they buy and a daily challenge of the needs of its use. 

Their moto: “If we recycle our outputs and transform them into inputs, we are in effect closing the circle and helping other neighbouring livestock systems to do the same, thus creating a stable social and economic network”.