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Located southwest of the Spanish city of Barcelona, the Penedès wine appellation straddles two coastal provinces—both that of Barcelona, in the north, and Tarragona further south. Penedès is known not only for still wines, but for sparkling ‘Cava.’
Josep María Albet i Noya, winemaker and owner of Albet i Noya winery in the Penedès, remembers when his father and grandfather died in the 1970's. He was a teenager. His mother told him he was now responsible to slaughter their livestock for meat.
“I said no, then stopped eating meat for five years,” he said when we recently met. “Then Denmark wanted organic wines, and they chose me because I was vegetarian! No one made organic wines back then. I was a vegetarian at the right place at the right moment.
“In 1978 we made 8,000 bottles of Tempranillo organic wine for Denmark. I like to travel, so visited Denmark. It was a big discovery. People at my age of 18 wore rings and leather pants, but they were business people! So often we would sell wine and then have to ask for payment three or four times. But these people? They paid right away, or in advance.”
From this first international foray, his winery has expanded and diversified. Last year it sold a million bottles from its 200 acres (80 hectares) of vines, as well from other locally purchased grapes.
The Penedès wine region's boundaries approximate the territorial region of the same name—historically a ninth century defense outpost. The wine from here, like that from more than 60 other wine regions in Spain, is classified as DO [Denominación d’Origen]. Although not as elevated in status as premium DOC wines from Rioja or Priorat, vintages can still be of excellent caliber.
The Penedès vineyards are divided into three sub-regions—low (maritime), central and high. These relate to topography; the region stretches westward and inland from the Mediterranean Sea over undulations and hills known as the Catalan coastal depression, the coastal range and the pre-coastal mountains—where vines thrive at up to 2,600 feet (800 meters) elevation.
More than 140 wine producers exist in Penedès.
Most wine from Catalonia in northeast Spain comes from this region. Four fifths is white, produced from 37,500 acres (15,200 hectares) of vines. The dominant white grape is Xarel.lo (yes, that’s spelled correctly), an indigenous variety that thrives in the central region. The next most prevalent grapes are Macabeo (predominant in the lower, coastal region) and Parellada which fares well in the interior highlands. Other prevalent whites include Chardonnay and Muscat, though Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc are also grown.
Smaller quantities of red grapes grow on 10,000 acres (4,035 hectares) dominated by Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Tempranillo.
Mediterranean winters are generally mild, while summers are hot—with average temperatures hovering in the 80’s (30 degrees Celsius). The clay, sand and limestone substrates below the grapes are generally dry and friable, conducive to letting vines penetrate deeply.
Today, Albet i Noya produces 24 grape varieties.
“Life is too short to use just one grape,” said Albet i Noya. “Why so many varieties? It’s like a painter. The more colors they have, the more complex art they can produce.”
Some of their vines are 40 to 90 years old. This provides both benefits and disadvantages. Although the overall quality of wine from these grapes is high, the associated high production, hence sales costs means it can be difficult to sell more than five percent of these top quality wines per year.
We paced over wide spaces before distant hills. The eclectic, bucolic view includes ancient church spires, concrete warehouses and brick apartment buildings. In this land of low skies and laconic skylines, vineyards intermingle with odd shaped fields of scrub, olive trees and whitewashed homes. Sporadic industrial factories, seemingly sited randomly, perch at the edge of agricultural fields.
Weather is the vital and capricious element on which the livelihood of farmers depends. This winery, which has aimed to produce consistent organic wines for more than forty years, constantly adjusts production based on the vagaries of weather.
“For ten years, we were the only organic wine producer here,” Albet i Noya recalled. “Now, there are plenty. The Mediterranean climate here is so variable. We’ll get 1000 millimeters (40 inches) of rain one year, then 350 millimeters (14 inches) the next. The risk of losing everything with organic wines is high. It’s not easy,” he added.
We stood around an outdoor table in the autumn chill and tasted glasses of white El Fanio 2016, made exclusively from Xarel.lo grapes. Aged eight months in wood (mostly acacia) as well as in concrete, the aromas include a hint of cinnamon while the precise, clean taste of tropical fruits provides a slightly acidic though satisfying mouthful.
We next sampled glasses of El Blanc XXV, a blend of 50% Viognier together with the juice of Vidal and Marina Rión grapes. This gives florals and pineapple on the nose, followed by a full, creamy and textured taste of layered tropical fruit.
Later, I tasted one of their reds, a 2013 La Milana. This blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo and Caladoc (a cross between Malbec and Grenache) includes an aroma of smoky orange rind and blueberries, while in the mouth is strongly tannic—almost Barolo-like—together with violets and licorice. This is distinctly assertive wine, a hefty forest of dark blue and blackberries.
After Albet i Noya, it was time to sample another aspect of what Penedès is renowned for. When the Alimentaria 2018 food, drinks and gastronomy trade show kicks off this April, the Intervin wine show is intended to showcase not only wines from Catalonia, but from all of Spain. Hundreds of exhibitors will pour glasses of the country's famed red vintages. Yet a fraction will also present a quiet contender to French Champagne: Cava sparkling wine. Between 2007 and 2016, sales of this beverage increased 9%, and continue to rise. More than 200 producers in Spain sell Cava, although three-fourths of their juice originates in Penedès. This bubbly is gaining renown as an affordable international hit, with more than half of Spain's production exported to other Europeans nations. Belgians are the largest consumers, followed by Germans, UK residents and Americans.
To better highlight the pedigree of Cava, in 2017 Spain’s government green-lighted a dozen exceptional Cava production sites to be awarded the equivalent of ‘grand cru’ status. In addition to other stringent criteria, these wines must be aged for three years in the bottle.
Cava means cave, or cellar, in the local Catalonian language, although it is also produced in other parts of Spain—including Rioja and the Basque region. First produced in the 1870’s and provided with DO appellation status in 1991, Cava is technically produced in the same way as Champagne—using ‘le méthode champenoise,’ where secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle, unlike, say, in Prosecco—where it takes place separately in a steel tank. After France, Spain produces the second highest volume of sparkling wine created this way.
A somewhat legendary Penedès Cava producer is Rovellats, located at a bend in a river where a 10th century village once thrived. Proprieteress Maria Rosa Vallès is a strong, charismatic character who tells engaging stories, such as the time she met the chairman of an upscale U.S. retail chain at the Cannes Film Festival. After their conversation, he phoned her to order ten containers of their wine at a time when the winery lacked the capacity to produce a fraction of that amount.
Times have changed. Today, the winery produces 350,000 bottles a year, of which 80% is sparkling and 20% still. The refreshing Rovellats Imperial Rosé Brut, made from 100% Grenache includes light lemons and rose petals on the nose, while their 2011 Gran Reserva Brut Nature provides a delicious mouthful taste of creamy and rich grapefruit and honey. Their 2008 Masia Segle XV Gran Reserva, of which they produced only 6,000 bottles, was recently voted one of the best Cavas in Spain. Light with soft bubbles, this has a slight aroma of caramel and lemon and pairs beautifully with both meat and fish—such as an oxtail and squid stew. Finally, the light and fine Rovellats Collecció—made from vines at least 60 years old and including 45% Macabeo—delicately balances acidity with citric fruit.
Cavas produced at the winery are fermented at low temperatures to maintain aromas, and bottles spend at least two years in the cellar.
‘Time is important for our products, but we’re not in a rush,” Vallès emphasized.
With time and the winds of change blowing across Catalonia, lands and vineyards have shifted hands. Vallès steers clear of politics and instead focuses on her product. “I’m not political,” she says. “I have a lot to learn, and so much to appreciate. The best things I have are honesty and enthusiasm.”
Pop the Cava: those are two qualities worth celebrating.
