The best bubbles of Cava in its new era

The Pujol-Busquets Guillén family has had the courage and the skill to create a sparkling wine with the Cava seal, that shows a different style to what we have seen so far. His Alta Alella 10 Brut Nature is the first 100% Chardonnay Cava to obtain one of the best scores of the year, a living demonstration that foreign grapes can also reflect the identity of a terroir and, of course, the style of a house. In this sparkling wine we find a wine fermented in oak and aged for a minimum of 10 years, not bad at all. Alta Alella Mirgin Exeo Evolució + 2005 is a great example of how a masterfully crafted Cava can stand the test of time. This is how we see the effects of a very long ageing process through a wine that shows all the tertiary nuances accompanied by a creamy and pleasant bubble.

Juvé Camps is credited with being one of the great ambassadors of Cava. Its sparkling wines have travelled all over Spain and have demonstrated the concept of traditional and affordable production. This brand has always been a reliable value and its top-of-the-range sparkling wines are capable of being the standard-bearers of the premium Cava label. The best example of this is Juvé & Camps La Capella, a 100% xarel.lo wine from the Espiells estate, an immense 200-hectare estate located in Alto Penedès, from which 7 hectares of a 40-year-old xarel.lo vineyard have been rescued. Just over 3,000 bottles of this cava are produced.

Founded by Pere Canals Ventura in 1999, this winery has excelled in the production of long-aged cavas, especially with its Castell Sant Antoni Torre de L'Homenatge 2006, an example of good ageing and cellaring, and a demonstration of the expressive power that wine made by the traditional method has when it's given time to evolve in the bottle. Moreover, this excellent example is made with the three classic Cava grapes: xarel.lo, macabeo and parellada.

Pere Ventura founded the cellars that bear his name in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia (Barcelona). This wine entrepreneur has managed to build a winemaking group present not only in Cava, but also in Penedès and Priorat and who knows if soon also in other important growing areas.

Pere Ventura Vintage 2015 (xarel.lo and chardonnay) or Pere Ventura Tresor Anniversary 2017, have been this year his two best rated sparkling wines by the team and so it has been for their ability to show two different styles. The first, a more modern wine, with an important presence of chardonnay, and the second representing the Catalan style, a xarel.lo, macabeo and parellada fresh, citric and with rich nuances of its ageing in rhyme.

Founded in 1987, this family winery is now run by the second generation of the family. It is a winery not given to ostentation, always present but not at all noisy. The best example of the discourse they convey as craft winemakers can be found in Rimarts Uvae 2008, a Cava aged for more than 80 months on the bottle with generous hints of dried fruits and fine lees. The palate is creamy and has a very interesting and pleasant fine bubbles.

The third generation of a family of winegrowers is responsible for placing the Parés Baltà winery, a traditional winery located in the heart of the Penedès region, among the best in Cava. This family, committed to ecological and biodynamic values in their wine-growing projects, manages to produce very representative and frank sparkling wines with great ease. The jewel in the crown, at least for us, is Parés Baltà Blanca Cusiné 2013, although Parés Baltà Cuvée de Carol 2012 and Parés Baltà Electio Xarel.lo 2018 are not far behind. Without a doubt, this is a winery that is well worth following.

This is a traditional everyday winery, with up to 29 generations dedicated to wine, as they themselves admit: "The Mestres family, documented in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia before 1312 as owners of vineyards and also as grain and wine merchants, has been linked to the wine world for 29 generations". This is a house that captivates us, because it makes cavas in the traditional style, a pure and clean Cava concept, especially focused on the Penedès style with its local grapes. Mestres is an example, just as Recaredo was before leaving Cava, of the concept of a more local, home-grown wine. Mestres Visol 2013, the only sparkling wine we have tasted this year from this winery, is a good example of what we are talking about here, as it shows a very interesting local wild and herbal character.

The KRIPTA Cava was a revolution in the sparkling Cava market when it was presented at the end of the 1970s with its innovative and unique bottle. This Cava is made from a blend of three grapes from three specific plots: xarel.lo from Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, macabeo from Sant Pau d'Ordal and parellada from Sant Joan de Mediona. If you have never tasted this Cava, now is the time to do so. Its 8 years of ageing in a corked bottle gives it subtle and rich oxidative nuances. It is still surprisingly young despite the years of ageing, so we suspect that its ageing capacity will be high.

The Nuria de Claverol range of this cava house is an example of how the biggest houses are also capable of making memorable sparkling wines, and if not, just ask Freixenet and Codorníu, capable of making products aimed at the masses, but also sparkling wines of finesse and elegance aimed at a more gourmet consumer. The Sumarroca family works more than 400 hectares of vineyards and produces a wide range of sparkling wines.

Núria Claverol Homenatge 2014, one of our favourites, is a sparkling wine made from a single vineyard and a single variety, xarel.lo. It is capable of taking us to a place, something that many producers seek through their most representative and iconic wines. His Núria Claverol Blanc de Noirs 2015, made from the French grape pinot noir, is an example of a non-conformist ideology that is always ready to find new forms of expression, even if some of them are outside the Catalan ethos.