The mysterious sabotage of wineries: why they occur and what consequences they have

He has erased from his memory a dramatic event that, at the time, he described as chilling and unthinkable.

It happened on the night of June 13, 2011, in the town of Torroja del Priorat, at the Terroir al Límit winery.

Someone forced the lock, entered the storage room, turned on the tap and spilled 1,200 liters of wine on the floor.

The crime did not stop there: five 500-liter barrels—a total of 2,500 liters of white wine—were contaminated with industrial soap.

Even today, one of its owners, Dominik Huber, wonders what could lead a person to commit such an act of hate or vandalism.

To this day he has no idea who could have destroyed a third of the wine production preserved in barrels in the winery created in 2004 by Hubert, Eben Sadie and Jaume Sabaté.

“Honestly, I don't know what caused this.

The culprit was never found.

We had to start over,” says Huber, with a thread of sadness that emerges over the phone.

He recognizes that the trauma remains: it was he who discovered the tragedy, due to the strong smell of detergent.

“It's today and I can't handle that smell.”

He still does not understand what leads a person to carry out an attack of this type.

“I know there is envy, but I prefer to forget and remember it as a bad experience.”

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Winemaker José Moro is still recovering from the impact.

Waiting for the Civil Guard to offer more information about who carried out the sabotage that occurred last Sunday at the Cepa 21 winery, in Castrillo de Duero (Valladolid).

According to the information that he offered through a video to the media, including this one, in which a person was seen opening two of the three raided warehouses, where 60,000 liters of wine from the last harvest rested.

“She is a woman, it is clearly seen.

“She knows very well how everything works, but I can't say anything because everything is being investigated,” said Moro, in a day full of interviews with everyone who asked for his version.

And he pointed out that the person who had perpetrated the assault “is someone unbalanced, with an evil that I had never seen in my life, because you either steal the wine or drink it, but you don't throw it away.”

He confesses that he has no enemies.

“It could be someone with envy or a work issue, but I can't give more information.

I have to be cautious.”

There is always a reason.

Aggressive behavior of this type is a way of expressing discomfort, out of revenge or to harm a person, explains psychologist Elisa Sánchez, an expert in occupational health.

“These behaviors are often impulsive, not very reflective, although other times they can be planned, and are due to the person feeling attacked.

It can also be to obtain a benefit, out of envy or to take revenge for something.”

And she clarifies that these events, “when they are done with a clear objective, are not usually repeated in series.”

Shocked by the incident, winery Camino Pardo, director of the Nexus & Frontaura wineries—the first in Pesquera del Duero (Valladolid) and the second in Toro (Zamora)—explains that this type of vandalism primarily seeks to cause harm.

“It must be differentiated from theft, which has an economic purpose.”

He assures that there is no feeling of insecurity in the area, or at least in his winery, which is equipped with a security system, “which would wake me up in case there was sabotage,” and he believes that it is important to send a message of calm, given than the Ribera del Duero area, since many families depend on the wine sector.

“There is viticulture, there is tourism, there is an economy.”

They have also turned the page at the Ferrer-Bobet winery, founded by Raül Bobet and Sergi Ferrer Salat, in one of the vineyards located in the municipality of Falset, in Priorat.

In 2005, unknown individuals entered the vineyard and sprayed the land with herbicide: they killed 8,000 vines.

When contacted by this newspaper, the property declined to comment for this report.

Three years ago, the Sanromà family, owners of the Celler Sanromà winery, encountered damage to a vineyard, on the one-hectare estate located in Vila-rodona (Alt Camp), in the DO Tarragona: unknown persons had cut down a twenty Parellada grape strains, with which they make their renowned sparkling and white wines.

Owner and winemaker Eduard Sanromá remembers well the morning of January 4, 2021. “I was pruning and suddenly I saw that there was a cut vine.

"I didn't give it any importance until I started to see that there was a row, next to a road, destroyed."

At that moment he felt the same indignation as he does now when he remembers it.

“The cut that was made to the plant was designed so that it would not sprout again.

In fact, half of the vines have died and the other half are having a hard time sprouting again.

You feel helpless and you realize how unprotected wineries and farmers have been for years.

“It is a social problem.”

Nobody knows anything about who did it to this day.

A mystery.

Only the cut was made with an electric saw.

“Surely it is someone close, from the agricultural environment.

It could have been because of envy, because of pressure, but we have not been able to find out anything.

He has not repeated himself either.”

And the damage, he explains, is the same as if the entire vineyard had been uprooted.

“It's the fact that they are my vines and no one has to enter my farm to do harm.

“You feel helpless because no one protects us.”

The mon is full of nit valentines.

Quina impotència i ràbia.

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.@PagesosGPS@DOTarragona pic.twitter.com/FgeQ7NFrTd

— Celler Sanromà (@CellerSanroma) January 4, 2021

The crime of sabotage is not contemplated as such, but it is within the crime of damages aggravated by the economic amount, the Cuatrecasas law firm explains.

It is included in article 263.2 of the Penal Code, with prison sentences of one to three years for anyone who causes damage, ruins or places someone in a serious economic situation.

In the case, for example, of the Cepa 21 winery, José Moro has quantified the losses at more than 2.5 million euros, 15% of the turnover [in 2022, according to the latest registered accounts, the winery invoiced 5.7 million euros and had a profit of 219,000 euros].

Also, when the damage is caused by a person outside the company, the crime of breaking and entering is contemplated.

According to article 203 of the Penal Code: the individual who, without living there, enters another's home or remains there against the will of its resident, will be punished with a prison sentence of six months to two years.

And if the act is carried out with violence or intimidation, the penalty will be imprisonment of one to four years and a fine of six to 12 months.

Here, therefore, there would be two crimes, the aforementioned law firm points out, which clarify that in the event that the person who caused the damage belonged to the affected company, a home invasion would not occur.

It would also be necessary to evaluate the damage caused, in this case, by the spilled wine.

There are occasions in which, the aforementioned sources clarify, sabotage can be produced by the company itself to advertise it or to generate empathy or solidarity and increase sales of a product.

Reporting a non-existent crime to a judicial or administrative authority, provoking procedural actions, is a crime of simulation of a crime with a fine of six to 12 months, as stated in article 457 of the Penal Code.

The truth is that this type of aggression or revenge leads to little, clarifies the psychologist consulted.

“It does not calm because it is not going to repair the discomfort that was experienced, and the only thing it leads to is having new problems, legal and economic,” Sánchez details.

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