Interview to the owner of Freixenet Group, Doña Pilar Ferrer Sala
Owner of the Freixenet Group together with her brother and sisters, José, Carmen and Dolores,Ms. Pilar Ferrer Sala is an affable, cultivated woman. Her life has revolved around the family business, in whose growth and expansion she has played a decisive role.
Recently celebrating her 90th birthday, Pilar Ferrer is a woman filled with vigour, with a lively look in her eyes, a steady talker and with her memory intact of an intense, very interesting life that undoubtedly can relate a part of the recent history of Spain, that of the 20th century, in which Pilar Ferrer had to take over the reins of Freixenet under some very difficult conditions for a woman and do all that was needed to maintain the business that her parents had founded together with her grandfather, Joan Sala
Tubella. It could even be said that, without her participation at that critical moment, Freixenet would not have been able to lead the field internationally as it does now.
Having lost her father when she was very young and the eldest of four children, she became the main support for her mother, Dolores, who at the same time was a woman who had a great knowledge of enology and was well prepared to lead the technical side of the company, a unique feat at the time. But the 1930s were not an easy time for Spain, which witnessed a long and painful civil war.
Pilar's brother, José, was still very young so she had to take charge of reinvigorating the business. Hers were the first steps for Freixenet after the war, when she was only 20 years old: to rebuild the company, which had been collectivised, regroup the cellar staff, revive what was left of the former sales network and search for and obtain the necessary funding to drive the company forward.
She did all this until she married José Luis Bonet Ruíz in 1940. She married when she was 21 because, as she says: ''I couldn't waste time.'' And adds: ''My husband and I said that we wouldn't change and we haven't. We've been together almost 50 years... He had his job and only helped us when it was necessary, to put it clearly: only when we had to solve something that needed the help of a man. Because women then were not incorporated into the workplace as they are now.''
First Steps:
She recalls with special emotion how they organised and roduced the first bottles of sparkling wine with one of her former, faithful collaborators, trying to recall the steps one by one: the cuvée, the yeasts, the sugar, etc: ''Fermentation was not a simple or easy operation. It's different now because enology is a university course. We were bottling cava and I was controlling the process... and it fermented!
After the right time had passed, I took one of the bottles, started to remove the cork... and it shot up to the ceiling! What joy! We had done it!''
As time passed, Spain began to recover. Freixenet also changed. It diversified its production and different types of sparkling wines were produced. Its advertising was also recovered and updated, which has been a constant factor in the history of the company since the times of her father, Mr. Pedro Ferrer i Bosch. ''I'm a firm believer in advertising; we've never stopped using it'' , explains Pilar, who is totally convinced of the importance of a modern, aggressive commercialisation campaign to maintain positive growth for the company.
Commercialisation with which she has always collaborated, travelling to encourage the company's network of sales representatives, attending conventions and always providing a reasoned view of the circumstances and situation of her country.
At the end of the 1950s, when Spain was undergoing a difficult period of stabilisation, her brother José entered the Freixenet company. His incorporation meant a change of emphasis and speed in the development of the company, renewing the technical side of the winery, restarting to export by taking over from Mr. Pedro Ferrer, who was a pioneer in the sector and even managed to set up a branch office in New Jersey (USA), and a change of strategy in Spain. José Ferrer found his ideal partner in this new era in the form of Pilar's eldest son, José Luis, who knew how to provide the business of Freixenet with an identity, pride and desire to become the leading cava brand. ''At times, I feel like I'm living in a bubble'', comments Pilar. ''What we've achieved is important: 18 wineries in 7 countries on 3 continents... My father always planned to travel to America and dreamed of having a winery in France. And we finally achieved it! In terms of my brother José, he has been
an innovative, very entrepreneurial man... I don't think that we are fully aware of the success of our efforts. We've had to make sacrifices; our aim wasn't to accumulate money but to put everything back into the company. I think that our parents would be proud of the change, because we have all acted responsibly. And we've happily reached this point now.''
Ms. Pilar Ferrer Sala has 4 children, 21 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.