An unusual tasting brought together several Pérezes who, although they shared the same surname, were not related, but were friends, united by their experiences with wine. Winemakers from different parts of Spain, from the Canary Islands to Catalonia, had to respect one condition: they had to talk about each other's wines and not their own, while sharing four bottles of different styles and vintages. ‘In the revolution that is taking place in Spanish wine, everyone is a Pérez’, said Benjamín Lana, director of Madrid Fusión, half-jokingly, half-seriously. ‘They have to be a movement, an attitude, a vindication of practices’. And so, on Tuesday, this “movement” called “Perezism” was born, always with the good humour that loosens up a good wine, with a manifesto that would be read at the end of the conclave. But first, it was time to talk about wines.

The first came from the Ignios winery, in the Canary Islands. Made from the Vijariego Negro grape, cultivated by Raúl Pérez, it received praise from the other “Pérezes”. ‘Canarian wine is in a class of its own in the world, one that did not exist before. They have developed a series of aromas that we did not know’, said Willy Pérez, oenologist at Bodegas Luis Pérez, in Jerez de la Frontera, who also spoke of the old route taken by Andalusians to America, on which they stopped at the Atlantic islands and left varieties of grapes. ‘They are more acidic, they make me cry. They have a very nice reduction and a lovely touch’. ‘It's an Atlantic sensation’, said Sara Pérez, from Mas Martinet & Venus Universal.

Another red followed, from Priorat. Els Escurçons 2023, from the Pérez i Ovejero family winery, run by Sara Pérez, with the black Grenache variety, planted in 2006. Another Pérez, Raúl, told an anecdote about Sara: they met in a restaurant, he challenged her to a blind tasting of a bottle of wine. ‘She loved it’, he says. ‘It was hers’. ‘When he arrived, it seemed like he had the winery all figured out, but he didn't’, said Willy Pérez. ‘All of them have experienced the change from concentrated wines to smooth wines. They are the pioneers. Lightness, elegance, especially in the Mediterranean, was what people wanted to drink. But the discovery of these new wines has been thanks to them. For example, Raúl did the opposite of what was taught, and did not oxygenate his wines’.

Then, a high-altitude wine was tasted, Bierzo designation, the Viariz. ‘We want to be representative, not typical. Typicality is an ugly word’, said Raúl Pérez. The tasting continued with the surprise of the day, a white pasto wine from El Álamo, which comes from ‘land that cracks, because it doesn't have enough clay’, on the grounds of Bodegas la Riva Macharnudo. ‘At first, I didn't understand them’, confessed Raúl Pérez. ‘When I tasted them for the first time, I said I didn't think they were interesting, and then fifteen years later, at a fair, they let me taste something that fascinated me. It was that wine I hadn't understood’.

Willy Pérez concludes: ‘Style is given little consideration. They teach technique but not why we do what we do: to break new ground, to change the style of your area. Although we influence an entire generation, it would be a nightmare if they all did what we do. They also must break new ground.’

To conclude, in the same tone she began, Lana read the ‘Perezism manifesto’, which includes commandments such as ‘less solemnity and more truth’, ‘recovering is not going backwards’ and ‘Perezism is not a school’. At the end, the document was signed.