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Designation of Origin
The Regulatory Board for Sparkling Wines —equivalent to that of the Designation of Origin, was constituted in 1972. When Spain joined the EEC, cava was acknowledged to be a quality sparkling wine produced in a specific region. So, in 1991, specific regulations are enacted for the new designation. In 1993 the first Cava Regulatory Board is constituted.
Authorised grape varieties are:
White: the main ones are Macabeo, Xarel·lo and Parellada. And together with them, Chardonnay
Red: Garnacha and Monastrell.
For rosés, Pinot Noir and Trepat are also authorised.
Wines
Once wine has been obtained from different grape varieties, second fermentation starts, which can be described as follows:
1. Tirage. The bottle is filled up with cuvée and wine yeasts, sucrose or concentrated grape must. Yeasts consume sugar and cause second fermentation to happen. Bottles are so kept for at least 9 months, in a horizontal position.
2. Stirring. Bottles are shaken so that yeasts sediment moves to the bottle neck.
3. Disgorging. The bottle of cava is opened in order to remove sediments, with a minimum loss of sparkling wine.
4. Corking. Initial volume is recovered. It is the moment to add some additional liqueur, like must or sweet wine. The bottle is definitively corked.
5. Labelling and packing. Laying of capsule, label, counterlabel and control seal.
Cava can be Brut Nature, Extra Brut, Brut, Dry, Semi Dry, Sweet.
 Geographical situation
The Cava production area consists of 160 municipalities from 7 Autonomous Communities. Most of these municipalities are in the Catalan wine making area: 67 in the area of Barcelona, 52 in the area of Tarragona, 12 in the area of Lleida and 5 in the area of Girona.
The rest of the areas, also in the North of the peninsula, are: 23 municipalities from Rioja, 2 from Aragon and one to the South-East (Valencia) plus another one to the South-West (Badajoz).
Penedès is a winemaking area, 40 kilometers South from Barcelona, gathering more than 95% of the total production. Sant Sadurní d’Anoia clearly outstands because its companies make more than 75% of the 200,000,000 bottles a year
Description
The traditional Penedès area has a great soil variety due to the geological and orographical diversity. Vine growing is common in the central area, far from the Mediterranean coast and protected by the Montserrat Mountains. Soils are limy, half-permeable to water. Climate is typically Mediterranean, bright and sunny, with soft winters and not too hot summers. All this, combined with a moderate rainfall distributed along the year, provides an optimal microclimate for vine growing and grape ripening.
Vintage Rating:
Excellent: 2000 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008
Very good: 1996 | 1999 | 2001 | 2002 | 2005 | 2009 | 2011
Good: 1995 | 1997 | 2004 | 2010
Website: www.crcava.es
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