Falset transforms the Falbar factory: Wine, virtual reality, and 4 million for IRTA

Falset already has a new tourist center inside the Falbar factory: the Wine and Landscape Space combines information, tastings, and virtual reality to explain the Priorat to visitors.

The inauguration comes after years of the building being closed and puts only a part of its more than 2,000 square meters into use. The rest still has to host administration, research, and the future headquarters of the DO Montsant.

Falset opens a tourist door inside the Falbar factory

What will the visitor find?

For those arriving in Falset eager to get to know the region, the change is concrete: now there is a tourist information point with three distinct spaces and an offer that goes beyond the usual brochure.

The center includes a tourist office, a tasting room, and an immersive room. The first focuses visitors’ attention; the second incorporates touch screens, aroma games, and gamification resources; the third explores digital arts through virtual reality.

Put simply: wine is not explained here only with a bottle on a table. **The facility aims to turn the visit into a participative experience**, with visual, sensory, and digital elements designed to make it easier to understand the territory and its wine culture.

• Tourist office: information about Falset and the Priorat.
• Tasting room: touch screens, aroma games, and gamification.
• Immersive room: virtual reality and digital arts.

Who will manage the facility?

The center is municipally owned, but daily management will be in the hands of the Priorat County Council. This formula places the space above a service exclusive to Falset and presents it as a gateway for the entire region.

For the local reader, this has a practical consequence: tourist information will not depend solely on a one-time initiative by the City Council, but on regional management. Priorat gains a common point to organize its attractions and guide visitors.

The issue is not minor. When a tourist facility has a regional perspective, it can connect municipalities, wineries, routes, and proposals under one address. And in this case, the address is an old factory that had been closed for years.

A closed factory that still has to grow

How much did it cost to recover the Falbar?

For the residents of Falset, the figure that explains the scope of the operation is this: the City Council bought the Falbar factory in 2022 for 377,520 euros and added a grant of 121,306 euros from the Tarragona Provincial Council.

The building was unused and has more than 2,000 square meters of surface area. If the various floors are summed, the space exceeds 4,000 square meters. The Wine and Landscape Space, therefore, occupies only a portion of the property: the project that has been unveiled is the first piece, not the whole lot.

This difference between the available space and the space open to the public helps understand what is at stake. Falset has not simply recovered a room to receive tourists; it has launched a transformation of an entire building, with diverse uses and effects that can go beyond visits.

The Falbar still has many shutters to raise. And that, in a region where wine weighs so much in the economy and identity, is not a decorative phrase.

What spaces will be installed afterward?

The rest of the factory has been assigned to three actors linked to Priorat and the wine sector: DO Montsant, the Priorat County Council, and IRTA-VITEC.

The DO Montsant headquarters is to be installed after works expected to begin later this year or early next year. The work will be financed by the denomination of origin itself with its own resources.

The County Council will locate citizen service offices and administrative spaces there. This concentrates public services within a building that had been unused until now and can bring management and information closer to people living in the region.

Finally, another part of the Falbar will house IRTA-VITEC. This entity is promoting a new oenological research winery focused on digitalization and the sustainability of the Catalan wine sector, with an investment of 4 million euros by the Generalitat.

Priorat puts Wine, research, and services in the same place

Why is this project of interest beyond tourism?

For the Priorat reader, the relevance of the Falbar is not limited to the arrival of visitors. The combination of tourist office, sector headquarters, administrative services, and oenological research concentrates activities that could previously be spread across different spaces.

The tourist center gives the project’s visible and immediate face. DO Montsant will add its future headquarters; the County Council, the citizen service offices; and IRTA-VITEC, a research space with an announced investment of 4 million euros.

This mix is the detail that differentiates the Falbar from a simple building renovation. **The project aims to bring together tourism promotion, administration, and wine innovation under the same roof.** The final result is not yet finished, but the structure already allows seeing where Falset is headed.

There is also a clear economic reading. Wine does not appear only as an attraction for those visiting the region, but as a sector that needs research, digitalization, and sustainability tools. The reality is less brilliant than a virtual reality video, but much more decisive: continuity must be given to what is produced, sold, and told.

When will the building’s transformation be completed?

The first phase is already visible with the inauguration of the Wine and Landscape Space. The rest will depend on the schedules of the works and the installation of each entity, with the DO Montsant headquarters planned for later this year or early next year.

The source does not set a concrete date for the opening of the IRTA-VITEC spaces nor for the administrative offices of the County Council. Therefore, what can be stated now is that the Falbar has begun to change usage, but its new stage is not yet complete.

This caution also avoids selling smoke. An inaugurated facility does not equate to a finished project; in this case, the tourist opening is the first move of a larger operation, which will have to turn empty square meters into real activity.

• Space already inaugurated: tourist office, tasting room, and immersive room.
• Next planned action: works for the future DO Montsant headquarters.
• New expected uses: citizen service, administration, and oenological research.
• Announced investment: 4 million euros for the IRTA-VITEC project.

Falset has opened the Wine and Landscape Space as a new tourist entrance to Priorat, but the news goes beyond screens and tastings: the Falbar factory resumes activity after years closed and is preparing to bring together tourism, public services, and wine research. The challenge will be for this combination of uses to become daily life and not just a well-lit inauguration.

Source of the article: Editorial / Catalan News Agency