By the Glass: Grower cava reflects heritage from grape to glass

If past experience has led you to put cava in the “cheerful but unremarkable” category of sparkling wine, three meticulously crafted bottles will update your notions about what the dry Spanish bubbly can be. These sparklers, made in the Champagne method from macabeo, xarel-lo, and parellada grapes, are the products of winegrowing families with longstanding roots in Penedès, Catalonia.

In the late 19th century, after the vine pest phylloxera wreaked havoc on the region’s wine economy, the Esteve family rebuilt their livelihood from the ground up. In Avinyonet del Penedès, an hour’s drive west of Barcelona, they replanted on new rootstocks, and expanded acreage. Today, the current generation makes a line of sparklers under the name Avinyó. The four siblings at the helm work organically, farming estate-owned vineyards to make grower cava.

When you learn that Celler Mas Candí was launched in 2006, you might assume that the people behind it are new to cava. But Ramón Jané’s family has cultivated grapes for 500 years, selling the fruit to large cava producers. Jané, together with his wife, Mercé Cuscó, and enologist friend Toni Carbó, are committed to farming their vineyards biodynamically, limiting production to ensure quality over quantity.