Description

Catalonia, and specifically the area known as the Penedès just West of Barcelona, is home to one of the world’s great sparkling wine cultures. Catalan growers, inspired by visitors from (and visits to) Champagne in the late nineteenth Century, took advantage of their local grapes to make ‘Cava’ – bottle-fermented sparkling wines using the local grape varieties.

Catalan sparkling wines today, however, are entangled in an identity crisis, with a series of high-profile splits since 2012. Corpinnat, Classic Penedès and the Conca del Riu Anoia DO are all homes to ambitious, high-quality producers attempting to escape the shadow of industrial Cava. Cava itself, though, is a much broader church than it is often given credit for, making strides to keep its finest producers on board.

The politics will keep churning for some years yet, but there’s no reason to talk about the real story: the wines. This report celebrates the very best in forward-looking sparkling wine in Catalonia, hunting down the freshness, precision and vitality that top vineyards, resourceful wine growing and fastidious winemaking can coax from a region whose sparkling wines live on the very frontier of climate change.

• Cava, Corpinnat, Classic Penedès and more
• Essential information for understanding Catalan Sparkling Wine
• Insight from top growers and winemakers through visits in Winter 2023.
• Opinion and coverage of Cava’s renewed efforts
• Ten Award-winners representing the best of the year
• Technical information and indicative prices