Cava - Spanish Sparkline Wine Cont'd

Part two of our series on Cava will talk about the "technical stuff" that goes into making Cava:

Cava Grape Varieties
Traditionally, three grape varieties are used in cava production: Macabeo (viura), xarel.lo (pansà blanca) and parellada. Today, you can also find cava wines made from chardonnay and subirat parent white wine grapes as well as the red varieties garnacha, monastrell, trepat and pinot noir. Trepat and pinot noir grapes may only be used in rosado (rose) wines.

Cava History and Method
Cava wines are often labeled with the words “método tradicional,” which, of course, means “traditional method.” This production method originated in France but was quickly adopted in Spain, most notably by Josep Raventós i Fatjó of Cordoníu, who created the first truly successful cava wine in 1872.

Cava wine production begins in the vineyard. In many cases, the grapes are picked early in the morning. The grapes are either carefully boxed and trucked to the winery for pressing, or, as is being seen more and more they are pressed right in the vineyard. Next, the still wine goes through a cold fermentation process.

The blending process gives each cava its individual character. This step, in which different amounts of still wines are combined to create a cuvée (blend), can involve traditional proportions of macabeo, xarel.lo and parellada, but the cuvée can also be 100 percent chardonnay or some other combination of approved still wines. At this stage, the licor de tiraje, a combination of yeasts, sugar and wine, is added so that the second fermentation can begin. The cuvée is bottled and the bottles are allowed to “rest on their lees,” or age on their sides, for at least nine months. (Many cava wines rest on their lees for 30 months or even longer; if you see a cava marked “Gran Reserva,” you’ll know it has spent a minimum of 30 months resting on its lees.)

The next step is remotion, or removido in Spanish, in which the bottles are moved to bring the yeast sediments up into the bottles’ necks for removal. This can be done by machine or by hand.

Disgorgement, or removal of the bottle’s cap and the sediment in the neck of the bottle, is the next step. Once the sediment is removed, licor de expedición, which adds sugars and wine to the bottle. Addition of a small amount of alcohol is also permitted at this stage. The wine is corked and labeled for sale after disgorgement is complete.

Salud!