Barcelona from A to Z by Barrie Kerper

Author:Barrie Kerper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

Cava, and other wines

Grape varieties grown to make wine include Macabeo, Parellada, Subirat, and Xarel-lo (these are used for cava, a sparkling wine made by méthode champenoise, which is the best known in the entire region); garnacha blanca, chardonnay, chenin blanc, and Gewürztraminer (to produce other white wines); and Garnacha Tinta, merlot, Tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, and Cariñena (to produce reds). The prestigious Priorat wines, which are produced southwest of Barcelona and are designated DOQ (denominació d’origen qualificada), are made from Garnacha blanca, Macabeo, Pedro Ximénez, and Xenin (for whites) and cabernet sauvignon, Cariñena, Garnacha negra, merlot, and Syrah (for reds). Chef and cookbook author Teresa Barrenechea notes in her book The Cuisines of Spain: Exploring Regional Home Cooking that the Priorat area “harbors the ideal combination of sun, precipitation, and, most notably, a slate-rich soil that imparts deep mineral notes that make Priorat wines taste unlike any others.” Winemaking here dates back to the Middle Ages, when monks of La Cartoixa D’Escaladei (Staircase to God) monastery made wine for Mass services. The monastery was the first Carthusian order in Spain, and its leader was called a prior and his territory was known as the priorat (today the monastery is in ruins but may be visited). The grape phylloxera pest ruined the vineyards in the nineteenth century, and only in recent decades has the land been devoted to growing grapes again. In fact, according to Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer in their The Barcelona Cookbook (Andrews McMeel, 2009), the “terroir” of Priorat “renders the area nearly useless for cultivating anything other than grapevines; many describe the landscape as resembling a moonscape.”

The wine-growing region of the Alt Penedès, not far to the southwest of Barcelona, is where the cava is made. Cava is on nearly every menu in Barcelona and throughout the region (and throughout Spain), and it’s fun to step into a bar while you’re out and about for a refreshing glass before you’re on your way again. Some places in Barcelona specialize in cava, and my favorite is El Xampanyet (carrer de Montcada, 22), a family business since the 1930s. The tapas here are quite good also, and it’s popular with locals as well. Xampanyet is open from noon to 3:30 p.m. and from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., and if you want a table (it’s small) you have to be there at the moment the metal grate is pulled up or you’ll have to stand at the bar until a table is free, which is hardly a hardship.

The lowdown on cava is that it’s not the same as the Italian sparkling wine, prosecco, which is quite a bit sweeter, and cava is produced in the méthode champenoise style (it cannot be called cava if it’s not). A great day trip is a visit to a cava vineyard, and to my mind it’s a no-brainer that it be Can Codorníu in the town of Sant Sadurní: not only is the tour impressive—Codorníu was founded in the sixteenth century

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