Catalonia

On a coast whose traditional production was nearly all heavy dark red wine for the world’s blending vats, it is a surpnse to find the world’s biggest cellars for sparkling wine. But Catalonia is unlike the rest of Mediterranean Spain. Catalans have more vitality, are more demanding, destinctive, creative. They also have, on rising ranges of inland hills in the shelter of the eastern Pyrenees, with the ocean at their feet, a superbly temperate and reliable climate.

In the past it was the hottest areas near the sea, with their super-potent wine, that were most in demand. Today it is the higher ground that has brought recognition to a new sort of well-balanced table wine, combining the qualities of ripe Mediterranean grapes with the sort of finesse that is found in the best Riojas.

There are eight Denominaciónes de Origen in Catalonia today, but by far the most important is not a regional name, but the DO Cava, whose heart, if not its only legal address, is the town of St SadurnI d’Anoia in the limestone hills of Penedès. It is the most-visited wine centre, they say, in Spain: the city of sparkling wine.

Cava, though, is not purely a geographical appellation. It is granted to certain towns in La Rioja, Navarra, Aragón and the Basque country as well as Penedès - but always and only for their metodo tradicional (ie what was formerly known as ‘champagne method’) sparkling wines.

Two vast concerns, CodornÍu and Freixenet, control the industry. They use local white grape vaneties, well adapted to produce acidic wines despite the hot weather, to make Cava fresh and well-balanced, if not very aromatic. Parellada, Xarel-lo and Macabeo (alias, in Rioja, Viura) are the principal sorts. But Chardonnay is increasingly entering into blends, and some are being sparkled straight.Young, their creaming cava can be exquisitely fruity. Where too much stress is laid on ageing they have not yet been so successful; though technology here advances in leaps.

One name has dominated the table wines of the region for thirty years or more: Torres. The bodegas at Villafranca de Penedès, family-owned for 300 years, led the revolution of ideas and technology that put Catalonian wine alongside Rioja as Spain’s best reputed and best distributed.

Bodegas Torres made the running by studying abroad, ignoring the rules, planting such non-traditional grapes as Cabernet and Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer, opening new vineyard areas at higher altitudes, using cold fermentation in stainless steel and ageing more in bottle and less in cask. The traditional red grapes of the Penedes are not greatly different from those of Rioja, with Garnacha and Tempranillo (known here as Ull de Llebre) preponderant. Torres’ standard brands, Tres Torres and Gran Sangre de Toro, have a certain extra richness and ripeness which distinguishes them from Riojas Reservas. Oak still plays an important part. The Torres top red, Gran Coronas Mas la Plana, almost pure Cabernet, tastes more like a complex, fruity, somehow faintly decadent Bordeaux.

Torres, followed by several of its neighbours, has also reinterpreted the white wines of Penedès, adding the classic French and even German grapes. One neighbour, Jean Leon, took the California view and planted nothing but Cabernet and Chardonnay. 

The owners of CodornÍu meanwhile had long intended to exploit the potential of inland Catalonia. In the 1930s, just before the Civil War, the Raventos famdy built an ambitious modern bodega at Raimat, on the high plateau near Lérida to make fine table wines. So far inland the climate is more continental, with minimal rainfall. After a 50-year delay, the Raimat estate started afresh to produce exceptional red and white wines, again using native and French varieties. The Cabernet in particular is excellent. In 1988 part of the Lerida region was given the DO Costers del Segre: Raimat, though, remains its only star.

The same family now owns the extravagant Masia Bach estate in Penedès, at St Esteve Sesrovires. Extrisimo Bach, formerly its best-known wine, was sweet and oak-aged, much in the style of the neighbouring Denominación of Alella, to the north of Barcelona.

Alella is a dwindling vineyard, interesting as its wines may have been. Further north the Costa Brava has its Denominación of Ampurdan, centred around Perelada in the province of Gerona, producing sparkling wines (not up to Penedès standards) and (the bulk of production) rosado.

More important are the ancient vineyards of Tarragona and Priorato, to the south, and the more recently created DOs of Conca de Barberá, extending Penedès-style wine further up into cooler hills, and Terra Alta, a similar inland extension to the sprawling region of Tarragona.

Priorato is the true heart of Tarragona, a hot and rocky region of volcanic soil that produces red wines of formidable colour, strength and blackberryish flavour. Fermented dry, they have been more used for blending than drinking. Recent examples, though, have revealed uninhibited and luscious flavours that bring parts of Australia to mind. As sweet fortified wine, aged for many years to acquire dusty rancio flavours, Priorato Dulee can also be superb.

Superlatives excluded, much the same can be said of the rest of Tarragona. Its wines, exploited and appreciated by the Romans (whose architecture is still much in evidence) are either strong dry reds for blending or passable substitutes for port. A very few are much better. But more could be, and Spain’s entry into the EC has encouraged the quality producers in all regions.