The cooperative movement spread across Europe during the last third of the 19th century as an alternative for the survival of family farming, in a context of growing integration into the world market and falling prices for agricultural products. In Spain, it was not until the Associations Act of 1906, inspired by Catholic social reformism, that the foundation of rural savings banks and agricultural unions began. Their aim was to provide credit to members and to negotiate better price and quality conditions in the purchase of seeds, fertilisers and other supplies.
The creation of wine production cooperatives began in France in 1893 and reached Navarre, specifically Olite, in 1911. Governments supported these associations in an attempt to control the wine overproduction that had become evident from 1920 onwards. With the same objective, the Cooperation Act was enacted on 2 January 1942, through which Franco’s dictatorship sought to organise and supervise production, giving decisive support to the creation of cooperative wineries in Spain.
Bargota joined this movement, although somewhat later. On 16 September 1916, the Rural Savings Bank and Agricultural Cooperative was founded, with 102 members. On 30 June 1947, the Bargotense Cooperative Winery was created, becoming a milestone in the collective organisation of work and in the marketing of wine. Later, on 28 June 1954, the Nuestra Señora del Poyo threshing cooperative was established. By 1960, the first had 162 members, the second had reached 167, and the third had 52. Finally, on 16 June 1962, the second threshing cooperative, San Isidro, was founded. The activity of all of them began to decline during the 1970s.
The Bargotense Cooperative Winery, founded in 1947 under the Cooperation Act, was promoted by the winegrowers of the Catholic Agricultural Union of Bargota. The construction of the winery, based on plans by the architect Valerio Bij, was carried out by the contractor Bonifacio Eneterreaga, with technical supervision by the oenologist Justo Abel de la Cruz from Logroño and accounting duties handled by Eduardo García Fontaneda, then a schoolteacher in Bargota.
Part of the financing came from bank loans, with credit provided by Banco Hispano Americano, the Navarre Social Agricultural Federation and the National Agricultural Credit Service. The remaining capital came from deductions made from the net value of members’ grapes, thereby forming the cooperative fund. The cooperative joined the Territorial Union of Cooperatives (UTECO), becoming affiliated in 1947 with the Cintruénigo Cooperative Alcohol Distillery, which provided an outlet for winemaking by-products, and taking part in 1955 in the creation of the second-tier cooperative COVINA, the Navarre Wine Cooperative.
However, rising labour costs, heavy financial burdens and stagnant wine prices explain the crisis of COVINA, from which the Bargotense cooperative decided to withdraw in 1970 after repeated non-payments. Around that time, the cooperative was experiencing internal tensions that led many members to abandon the project: while in 1966 there were 161 members delivering their grapes, by 1968 only 118 were doing so, and the quantity of grapes had fallen by 57% compared with 1966. Internal decline worsened, and in 1975 the Board agreed to lease the facilities to a businessman from Logroño. The cooperative experience was coming to an end, although the formal dissolution and demolition of the building did not take place until 2013.
Throughout its history, the Bargotense Cooperative Winery had numerous presidents and members of its Governing Board, whose decisions shaped the course of an initiative that reflected the collective effort and entrepreneurial spirit of Bargota’s winegrowers —a legacy that still lives on today in the memory of the village.
