Cava - - an overview of the Spanish sparkling wine
- Last year cava production surpassed 252.5m bottles, generating worldwide sales of €1,149m .
- Exports accounted for 64% of the sales and national sales exceeded 90 million bottles.
- Cava is unique in that nearly all other controlled wine regions in the world are geographically specific.
- However, in Spain, Cava is produced in 11 different provinces spread across seven autonomous regions of the country
- While more than 80% of Cava is produced in the Penedenes area in the Catalonia community, it is also produced in Extremadura, nearly 800km away in the southwestern corner of the country, as well as in La Rioja, 400km to the west.
- It is also produced in the Valencian area of Requena, several hundred km south, not to mention Navarra, Aragon and Castilla y Leon.
- Such complex distribution makes control and co-ordination difficult and over 30 years of the DO’s existence has provoked numerous conflicts amongst the 220 odd Cava producers.
- The majority of these are situated in or around Sant Sadurni d’Anoia, 30 miles south of Barcelona and the village considered to be the capital of Cava production.
- In 2013 several Cava producers attempted to redefine the geographic limitations of Cava country, essentially trying to limit this to the Penedés area, with the intention of increasing quality levels
- However, their attempts were largely ignored by other producers, and as a result the 12 wineries created the denomination Clàssic Penedés.
- There are now 16 sparkling wine producers in this D.O., and it is expected that several other small to mid-range Cava producers may follow suit
- Meanwhile, another row broke out when the Ministry of Agriculture limited new vineyard acreage. While new plantations were listed to a few acres in Catalonia, Exremadura and La Rioja were permitted to grow significantly superior areas, provoking anger elswhere.
- The political unrest between Catalonia and the Spanish government last year which culminated in the unilateral declaration of independence by Catalonia forced nearly 30000 companies that had their HQ in the region to transfer to other parts of Spain.
- These included Codorniu who moved its offices to the La Rioja winery, Bodegas Bilbainas, one of Codorniu’s various holdings outside of Catalonia.
- Other major Cava producers with properties in other regions also considered this option, for the time being, Freixenet and Jaume Serra maintain their central offices in Sant Sadurní and Vilanova i la Geltrú respectively.
- This political unrest also contributed to increased production and sales of Cava in the other regions in detriment to sales of the Catalonian Cavas.
- The latest development is the establishment of the Assocation of Vitners and Producers Corpinnat (AVEC – Asociación de Viticultores y Elaboradores Corpinnat) by six of the most prominent high end Cava producers, Gramona, Llopart, Nadal, Recaredo, Sabaté i Coca and Torelló.
- The Group wants to fight back against the price war which has seen pricing down to as little as T1,80€ for bottles of Brut Cava in some major Spanish supermarket chains.
- Another, and possibly more significant feature of the movement is the inclusion of the Penedés region as the locality of origin of the Cava made by these producers.
- Until now, this specific indication has not been allowed by the Regulatory Board. Apparently, within the coverage of the European Brand Guarantee, this particular
- Earlier this month Freixenet announced the acquisition of over half of the company (50.7%) by the German distribution giant Henkell.