Carviresa: the winery founded in 1870 that launches its own brand and shop

* Data verified in the shop. Sales figures will be published once the shop has enough track record and the client confirms them.

The context

Some companies have been doing things well for so long that the world changes around them without anyone finding the time to sit down and look at it. Carviresa is one of them.

In Tàrrega, in the heart of the Vall del Corb, this house has been making wine since 1870. Six generations tending century-old vineyards and a family of house brands that each tell a different story: Don Quien, Valerna, Sot Neral, Tararot, Pocapena, Lo Traguet de Sant Eloi. They also make their own olive oil. All of that would be a business in itself.

But Carviresa is also a distributor. On top of its own production, it sells wines from other wineries — Catalan, from the rest of Spain and international — along with cavas, spirits, preserves, cured hams, cheeses and accessories. It has its own physical shops, it supplies bars and restaurants, and for years it has also sold online.

That «also» is the crux of it. The shop existed, but it lived inside the company website. The same address had to tell the winery's story, explain the appellations, speak to hospitality professionals, present the physical shops and, somewhere in among all that, sell a bottle to a private buyer. Five different jobs under one roof.

When that happens, selling always loses. Someone who comes in to buy a cava for a dinner meets the family history first, then a section for trade customers that is not for them, and only after that the product. And the website, meanwhile, was getting on in years: the blog had stopped in 2020, the structure belonged to another era and the buying experience was nothing like the one that same customer has every day in any other online shop.

The challenge

The conversation did not start with «we need a new website». It started with a business decision: Carviresa wants online to be its leading sales channel. Not a nice add-on to the physical shops, not a showcase: the channel that sells the most. That changes completely what has to be built.

• Taking end-customer sales out of the corporate website and giving them a place of their own where they compete with nothing.
• Keeping a broad, living catalogue — wines, cavas, spirits, food, accessories — with prices and availability up to date, without anyone having to update it by hand.
• Serving two audiences that are nothing alike: the private buyer picking up two bottles and the hospitality professional who buys in a completely different way.
• Meeting the requirements for selling alcohol online, and doing it without making the customer feel they are filling in paperwork.
• Making the shop findable. A shop that only long-standing clients know about cannot be anyone's leading sales channel.

And one condition running through all of it: no starting from scratch behind the scenes. Carviresa runs its business on a management system that holds the products, the prices and the warehouse. The shop had to lean on that, not live apart from it.

The solution: a brand whose only job is selling

The first decision was the most important one and there is nothing technical about it: the shop should not be called Carviresa.

Carviresa is the family name, the one suppliers, restaurants and the trade know. To a private buyer looking for a good wine as a gift, that name means nothing. That is how Divina Bodega came about: a new brand, with its own address, its own tone of voice and a single mission, selling to the end customer. Carviresa is still there, behind it, as the winery and the track record that give everything else its credibility.

1 · A shop that keeps itself up to date

Divina Bodega is connected to Carviresa's management system. Products, prices and availability come from where they already were, and the shop follows. Nobody has to copy anything from one place to another.

It looks like an internal detail, but it decides the project. A shop that has to be maintained by hand goes out of date within three months: prices that no longer apply, products that are not in stock and a customer on the phone, annoyed. Being connected, the shop tells the truth every day without costing anyone hours.

2 · A catalogue organised the way clients search

There are two ways to organise a catalogue: the way the company holds it internally or the way people ask for it. We chose the second.

People buying wine do not search the same way as people buying spirits. Some go by appellation — Priorat, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Empordà, Costers del Segre — others by type — red, white, rosé, cava — others by occasion — a gift, a dinner, something special — and others go straight to a particular brand. The shop caters for all of those routes at once, and each one leads somewhere sensible in two or three clicks.

3 · Trust from the very first screen

In a new shop, the customer is not wondering whether the wine is good: they are wondering whether it will arrive. That is why the most prominent thing on arrival is not a product but the answers to those doubts: delivery in 24-72 hours across Spain, free from €75, 30 days for exchanges, secure payment by card or Bizum and a phone number with a real person behind it, from nine to seven.

This is information that is usually buried in the footer. Putting it at the top is not decoration: it is what makes someone who does not know you dare to buy for the first time.

4 · The winery, front and centre

Divina Bodega sells many brands, but it has an advantage no generic wine shop can copy: there is a real winery behind it, with its own vineyards and its own signature wines. The shop tells that story and puts it where it can be seen, with a dedicated space for the house brands and for the olive oil.

That does two things at once. It gives the shop a personality that sets it apart from any price comparison site, and it turns the house wines — the ones with the best margin — into the main act instead of one more category lost among hundreds.

5 · Built to be found

This is the difference between building a shop and building a sales channel. Before placing a single product we look at what people actually type into Google when they are after a wine from a particular appellation, a cava for a celebration or a bottle as a gift, and at the words they use to ask for it.

The catalogue was organised around that. Each category has its own page and its own copy, written to answer a real search. That way the shop earns visits on its own, little by little, without depending solely on advertising or on telling long-standing clients one by one. It is the least visible work in the project and the work that decides whether, in two years' time, this is the leading channel or still an experiment.

6 · Two languages and room to grow

The shop launches in Spanish and Catalan, which is where its natural customer base comes from. It is built to add more languages and more markets when the time comes, without rebuilding anything. Once a company decides that online is to be its main channel, the website stops being a project that finishes and becomes a tool that grows.

The shop from the inside

Anyone landing on Divina Bodega finds a shop that gets straight to the point. At the top, the delivery promise and the phone number. Below it, the main routes: wines, cavas and sparkling wines, spirits, gourmet food, accessories and the house olive oil.

A little further down comes the winery, with the six house wine ranges told in a sentence each — the easy-going Pocapena, the elegance of Don Quien — because a wine is not sold with a data sheet, it is sold with an idea. And after that, the week's best sellers, which is the section that works best in any shop: people want to know what everyone else is buying.

Every product has its own page with a photo, appellation, price and the option to adjust the quantity without leaving the listing. There is a search box for anyone who knows what they want, a customer area for repeat buyers and a cart that does not force you to register before you can see the delivery cost. And on your first visit, the age check the law requires, settled in one click.

Results

Let us be honest about the timing: the shop has only just launched. Talking about sales figures today would be making things up. What we can say is what has genuinely changed and why this project is a before and after for Carviresa.

The first is focus. For the first time the company has a site whose only job is to sell, without sharing it with the family history or with the trade side. Everything decided there — a promotion, a new category, a campaign — is measured against one thing only: whether it sells more or not.

The second is sustainability. The shop keeps itself up to date because it draws on the management system. That means growing the catalogue does not mean growing the workload, which is exactly what you need when you want one channel to outgrow the rest.

The third is image. A house with more than 150 years behind it that presents itself with a modern, fast, clear shop says something very specific: it is still very much alive. And suppliers, restaurants and physical shops notice that too.

The fourth will take longest to show and is worth the most. A shop organised to be found wins clients who had never heard of you. That is the real leap: going from selling to people who already know who you are to selling to people who discover you while looking for a wine.

We will publish the order and growth figures once there is enough history and the client confirms them.

What the project includes

A brand of its own for the online channelA complete online shopConnected to their management systemA catalogue organised around how clients searchProduct pages and searchCustomer area and cartDelivery, returns and secure paymentAge verificationSpanish and CatalanBuilt to show up in Google

Frequently asked questions

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