“I never drank a bottle to come“. David Seijas looks for wine, sells wine, lives on wine but does not drink it.
David is an alcoholic and
David Seijas Villa (Seva, 1980) has a gallon wine career: He was the head of the sommelier at El Bulli with soul mate, Ferran Centellesand directs chicken skin“non-bodega” at Guillem Sanz. “Gallina de Piel is a ‘collaboration’. We work in different parts of Spain, with different families, with people who know more about each place than we do,” he explains.
They travel, they choose, they buy, they share. The first vintage was 2016 and went on sale in 2018. David had the last drink “on September 26, 2017”. He remembers for sure. These are red, blue or green days: days that are never forgotten.
At the table of the Voracious restaurant, Hotel Barcelona EditionThe first labels it marketed, starting to recommend the bottle menu, but with the wines available: Manar dos Seixas 2021 (Ribeira) and Critical Rock 2020 (in empor). He did not drink in 2018 and in 2023. The difference between then and now is that you can taste them. At the front is the spittoon, which is a basic working tool.
“It’s been five years since I quit drinking. But this is the first year I’ve been good.” There was another important moment in the 2017 renaissance: death of dad Toni. “I have an indelible image: my father in a wheelchair and my son Pol take their first steps”.
it’s the end. This is the beginning.
It was Toni’s death that caused him to correct the misguided path.
There had been an unsuccessful attempt before. Yet another date in red, blue or green, the closing of El Bulli in July 2011. “It was last season and I decided to go to a psychiatrist and quit.. It was actually two seasons in one. He drank a lot, went out a lot. He lived and slept in El Bulli Roses”. Wine, champagne, mixed drinks, cocaine.
Sleep less, eat less, shivering, a certain agoraphobia. “I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish the season. For me it was a very serious thing. We weren’t playing: we were showing maximum respect for what we were doing. I told them I wouldn’t be playing in the remaining 4-5 months. Tasting.”
Because alcohol? “I’ve always wanted to have a good time. My head is spinning and alcohol slows me down. I thought I was doing it out of stress, demand… I took it with a psychiatrist, on medication. … I came back six months after closing El Bulli”. Open big bottles with colleagues, visit wineries. Fun life. “I liked it and it looked good.” Here’s a key: “Looks good”. And the fall has begun, unstoppable, visible. 77 kilos today; He later reached 94.
“Alcohol dominated me. I didn’t lead my life: I was just the co-pilot. I became the king of disguise, I knew who I could drink with and with whom I could not.” He knew which gas stations sold the cheapest beer, and he threw up to drink more: “I spent more than I earned.” Today he stops again at gas stations on that desperate route: “But to meditate.” Four pillars: sport, meditation, music (“I play the guitar”) and therapy.
And “although, in spite of, in spite of…”. Against everything, Skin Chicken. For his wife, for his son, for his mother, for the father he just said goodbye to. By himself. This company was what he always wanted. But how do you immerse yourself in wine without drinking wine?
“She went back to the psychiatrist’s office, then continued on her own, then sought other help,” she said.a different view”: a therapist, “graphotherapist”. A system has found ‘its’ system and does not proselytize, don’t try to persuade, just say: “I like wine, gastronomy, I don’t know how to do anything else. If I change my profession, alcohol wins. And I want to describe the landscape, the person, the region. Everything but alcohol.
He stopped hiding, went out again to socialize, go out to dinner. The complicity of Ferran Centelles, whom he changed glasses during the advertising tastings in the process of getting used to the new life, so that there would be no need for explanation. Make a book to explain all this.but not only that, but also his love for his job.
Other colleagues in your case: they called him, they want to know, they want to go out too.
I’m drinking a glass Critical Rockdetailing Anna Espelt partly with grapes from his estate More Mare, at Cap de Creus. A very important place for David, a kind of refuge: Passed a thousand times on El Bulli road and that accordion road.
I drink Roca del Crit with pleasure and David spitting, spitting a lot, exaggeratedly.
-There is no other choice. Now when I go to a restaurant, I want a spittoon.
A spittoon at all tables.