Beneath the small town of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia run kilometres of cellar galleries. It was here, in 1872, that Josep Raventós of the house of Codorníu bottled what is regarded as the first Cava, made by the Champagne method. Today about 95 per cent of Cava comes from the Penedès, most of it from this one town. The two giants stand here: Codorníu, whose family chronicle goes back to 1551 and whose modernist cellars were designed by Puig i Cadafalch, and Freixenet, founded in 1914, regarded as the world’s largest producer of bottle-fermented sparkling wine and part of the German Henkell group since 2018.
From the beach to 800 metres
The Penedès is Catalonia’s wine coast between Barcelona and Tarragona, and it climbs in three tiers. The Penedès Marítim with the Baix Penedès stays below 250 metres, warm and mild. The Penedès Central, up to about 500 metres, is the land of Xarel·lo and Macabeo, the base wines of Cava. The Penedès Superior in the Alt Penedès rises on the pre-coastal range to about 800 metres; here, in the coolest part, Parellada is at home. The climate is Mediterranean with 500 to 650 millimetres of rain. About 17,000 hectares of vines lie between sea and mountains, a large share of them grown for Cava, whose DO covers about 37,000 hectares across several regions of Spain, 82 per cent planted with the three native grapes. The DO Penedès itself, entirely organic since the 2025 harvest, now lists a good 2,500 hectares.
In the glass
The grapes the region is known for, by sweetness, acidity, tannin and body.
| Grape | Sweetness | Acidity | Tannin | Body |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chardonnay | dry | medium to high | white, no tannin | medium(−) to full |
| Pinot Noir | dry | medium(+) to high | low to medium | light to medium |
| Cabernet Sauvignon | dry | medium to high | medium(+) to high | medium to full |
| Merlot | dry | medium(−) to medium | medium(−) to medium(+) | medium to full |
| Grenache | dry, also sweet | low to medium | low to medium | medium to full |
| Tempranillo | dry | medium(−) to medium | medium to high | medium to full |
Each grape’s typical range worldwide, not in this region alone, on the WSET tasting grid (Level 3, 2022): dry to luscious, low to high, light to full. The dot before each name shows the colour of a typical bottle. Outlined: a sweet style beside the dry wines.
A cellar, not a place
“Cava” simply means cellar. The name first appeared in an official document in 1959, a regulatory council for sparkling wines adopted it in 1972, and the Cava zone was demarcated in 1986. It is not a district but a list of municipalities from Rioja and Navarra to Extremadura and Valencia. The ageing tiers are Cava de Guarda with at least nine months on the lees, Reserva with 18 and Gran Reserva with 30 months, plus the Cava de Paraje Calificado from a single site. For many producers that was not enough: Raventós i Blanc, the estate of another branch of the Raventós family, left the DO in 2012 for an origin of its own, Conca del Riu Anoia. In 2017 and 2018 Gramona, Recaredo, Torelló, Llopart, Nadal and Sabaté i Coca founded the Corpinnat brand, “heart of the Penedès”: hand harvesting, organic farming, grapes from the Penedès only, winemaking on the estate and at least 18 months of ageing. In January 2019 they walked out of the DO Cava.
Sense of scale
17,000 ha Penedès has about 1.2× as many vines as all of Switzerland.
One square is all of Switzerland: about 14,350 hectares of vines.
Vineyards compared
Vineyard area in hectares, rounded, as the articles give it. Regions without a reliable figure are left out.
A black label in Paris
The Penedès is also still-wine country. The Torres family has made wine at Vilafranca del Penedès since 1870 and planted Cabernet Sauvignon and other French grapes in the 1960s. Its Cabernet Mas La Plana from the 1970 vintage, then called Gran Coronas Black Label, won the Gault-Millau Wine Olympics in Paris in 1979 ahead of Bordeaux growths such as Château Latour. Today Xarel·lo is taken seriously as a still white, taut, saline and built to age.
Brut nature with tapas
In the glass: a brut nature at 6 to 8 degrees with jamón, almonds and fried fish, a Gran Reserva with roast chicken or a mushroom rice, a Xarel·lo with grilled fish, a Penedès Cabernet with lamb.