Wine - Spain - Penedès: Cava Country - General Information

Front 1

What is Spain's only traditional method sparkling DO wine?

Back 1

Cava

Front 2

What sorts of vines are generally planted in Penedès, currently and historically?

Back 2

Prior to phylloxera, which struck Penedès in 1876, more than 80% of the vineyards here were planted with black grapes. When the vines were grafted on to American rootstock, white varieties were given priority due to the growing popularity of sparkling white wines. It is easy to recognize the classic imported varieties in the vineyards because they are trained along wires, whereas traditional Spanish vines grow in little bushes.

Front 3

What are the districts of Penedès?

Back 3

(p318)
Districts of Penedès:

Bajo Penedès
Medio Penedès
Alta Penedès (Penedès Superior)

Front 4

What grape varieties are grown in the Bajo Penedès district of Penedès?

Back 4

(p318)
Grape Varieties of Bajo (or Baix) Penedès:

Monastrell
Malvasia
Grenache (syn. Garnacha)
Cariñena
other, mostly black, grape varieties

Front 5

What grape varieties are grown in the Medio (or Mitja) Penedès district of Penedès?

Back 5

(p318)
Grape Varieties of Medio (or Mitja) Penedès:

Mostly:
Xarel-lo
Macabéo

Best area for:
Tempranillo
Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot
Monastrell

Front 6

What grape varieties are grown in the Alta (or Alt) Penedès district of Penedès?

Back 6

(p318)
Grape Varieties of Alta (or Alt) Penedès:

Almost exclusively white
mostly Parellada
Riesling
Gewürztraminer
Muscat
a little Pinot Noir

Front 7

Discuss the Bajo (or Baix) Penedès district of Penedès.

Back 7

(p318)
Bajo (or Baix) Penedès:

This area occupies the coastal strip and is the warmest of all three areas. The land of the Bajo Penedès is low and flat, with vines growing on limestone, clay, and sandy soil. This area produces more and more full-bodied red wines such as Torres's Sangredetoro.

Front 8

Discuss the Medio (or Mitja) Penedès district of Penedès.

Back 8

(p318)
Medio (or Mitja) Penedès:

The middle section of the Penedès is slightly hilly, occasionally flat land at an altitude of some 660 feet (200 meters) in the foothills west of Barcelona, on a soil of mostly limestone and clay. It has a cooler climate than the Bajo, with most areas equivalent to Regions II and III of the California Heat Summation System. This is essentially Cava country, but it also produces the best of the new-style reds, including Torres's various Coronas wines.

Front 9

Discuss the Alta (or Alt) Penedès district of Penedès.

Back 9

(p318)
Alta (or Alt) Penedès:

This area is the farthest inland, and the grapes are grown on chalky foothills at an altitude of between 1,640 and 2,620 feet (500 and 800 meters). Climatic conditions are the coolest in Penedès, equivalent to Regions I and II. It is so cool that Cabernet Sauvignon will not ripen here and almost all wines produced are white, although Pinot Noir for Torres's Mas Borras is grown at San Marti. Most pure Alta Penedès wines are fresh, of the cool-fermented type, and can show remarkably fine aroma and acidity.

Front 10

Where is Penedès, in Spain?

Back 10

(p318)

Lying in the northeast corner of Spain, where Rioja's Ebro River enters the Mediterranean, Penedès is part of Catalonia, which also includes Alella, Ampurdan-Costa Brava, Catalunya, Conca de Barbera, Costers del Segre, Monstant, Pla de Bages, Priorat, Tarragona, and Terra Alta.

Front 11

What is the climate like in Catalonia?

Back 11

(p318)

A mild Mediterranean climate prevails in Penedès, becoming more continental (hotter summers and colder winters) moving westward and inland toward Terra Alta. In the same way, problems with fog in the northeast are gradually replaced by the hazard of frost toward the southwestern inland areas. In the high vineyards of Alta Penedès, white and aromatic grape varieties are cultivated at greater altitudes than traditional ones, since they benefit from cooler temperatures.

Front 12

What is the aspect of Catalonia?

Back 12

(p318)

Vines are grown on all types of land, ranging from the flat plains of the Campo de Tarragona, through the 1,300-foot- (400-meter-) high plateaux of Terra Alta, to the highest vineyards in the Alta Penedès, which reach an altitude of 2,620 feet (800 meters). For every 330-foot (100-meter) rise in altitude, the temperature drops 0.56°F (1°C).

Front 13

What is the soil like in Catalonia?

Back 13

(p318)

There is a wide variety of soils, ranging from granite in Alella, through limestone-dominated clay, chalk, and sand in Penedès, to a mixture of mainly limestone and chalk with granite and alluvial deposits in Tarragona. The soil in Priorat is an unusual reddish slate with particles of reflective mica in the north, and schistose rock in the south.

Front 14

How contemporary are the winemaking techniques in Catalonia?

Back 14

Catalonia is a hotbed of experimentation. Ultramodern winemaking techniques have been pioneered by Cava companies such as Codorniu and fine-wine specialists like Torres.

Front 15

What are the viticulture and vinification practices like in Catalonia?

Back 15

Viticulture and vinification practices are generally quite modern throughout Catalonia. This is especially so at the Raimat Estate in Lérida, where the technology ranges from the latest and most efficient "Sernagiotto" continuous press for bulk production to the "Potter gravity crusher." Described as the simplest press ever designed, this extracts no more than 50-60% of the grape's potential juice.

Front 16

When was the first Spanish sparkling wine made?

Back 16

The first Spanish sparkling wine was made by Antoni Gali Comas some time prior to 1851, when he entered it in a competition in Madrid. He did not persevere, and the next milestone was with Luis Justo i Villanueva, the Laboratory Director at the Agricultural Institute of Sant Isidre in Catalonia. It was under Villanueva that all the earliest commercial producers of Spanish sparkling wine learned the Champagne process. In 1872, three of his former students, Domenec Soberano, Francesc Gil, and Augusti Vilaret, entered their sparkling wines in a Barcelona competition. All used classic Champagne grapes grown in Catalonia. Soberano and Gil were awarded gold medals, while Vilaret, who used raspberry liqueur in the dosage, received a bronze. Vilaret's firm, Caves Mont-Ferrant, is the only one of these enterprises to have survived.

Front 17

Codorniu claims that they were the first to produce Spanish sparkling wine in 1872. True or false?

Back 17

Codorniu did not, in fact, sell its first sparkling wines until 1879, and it would not be until 1893 that its production hit 10,000 bottles, a level that the three original firms achieved in the 1870s. What everyone seems agreed on, however, is that José Raventós i Fatjó of Codorníu was the first to make bottle-fermented sparkling wine out of Parellada, Macabéo, and Xarel-lo and that these grapes came to form the basis of the entire Cava industry.

Front 18

The production of Cava is dominated by what firms?

Back 18

Codorníu
Freixenet

Front 19

What are the opinions of the two leading producers of Cava on using foreign grape varieties?

Back 19

Freixenet has always been violently opposed to the invasion of Cava vineyards by foreign grape varieties. Their argument is certainly valid - that the introduction of foreign varieties could erode Cava's Spanish character. Cava is, after all, the only dry sparkling-wine appellation of any repute outside France and, of course, Spain has its own indigenous varieties, thus internationally renowned grapes like Chardonnay can only dilute the wine's identity. However, as Codorniu has shown, blending with Chardonnay can fill out a Cava in a way that the traditional varieties (Macabéo, Parellada, and Xarel-lo) cannot.

Front 20

Cava's traditionalists have, for some bizarre reason, always considered black grapes in a white Cava to be sacrilegious. What experiments have crossed that line?

Back 20

Manuel Duran, the chairman of Freixenet, produced a Monastrell-Xarel-lo cuvée (the first release was too flabby, but the second release in 1997 was much better - the Catalonians are not used to handling black grapes for white wines, and I expect this Cava to continue improving). Prior to Freixenet's project, Codorniu was the only house to try black grapes in white Cava and succeeded in producing one of the most sumptuous Spanish sparkling wines ever using Pinot Noir.