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‘Cava has something quite distinctive to offer.’
‘Cava has something quite distinctive to offer.’ Photograph: Lucy Lambriex/Getty Images
‘Cava has something quite distinctive to offer.’ Photograph: Lucy Lambriex/Getty Images

Cava – a fizz to rival prosecco or champagne

This article is more than 5 years old

It’s got a bad rep as being inferior, but its recent upped quality makes it a great alternative to other sparkling wines

It’s easy to be cynical about the move to create a super-premium style of cava. For years, it has been losing market share to prosecco, and people perceive it as cheap, so the logical answer is to up the quality and charge more for it. But you could also argue that cava is underrated – that it has a unique style, grapes and terroir, and that the best vineyards can produce quite special wines now labelled paraje calificado.

The odd thing is that, having launched to great fanfare at the end of last year, these are practically impossible to find in the UK, other than in a handful of pricey London restaurants (Hedonism stocks Alta Alella’s Mirgin Opus 2013 if you put in a special order, while Tanners will have Freixenet’s seriously impressive Can Sala in the autumn, but that will be almost a year after the denomination was announced). True, there isn’t very much of it, and maybe cava producers are focusing on more lucrative markets than the UK, but it’s also possible that this is a case of snobbery: retailers just don’t think there’s a market for high-quality Spanish sparkling wine.

This is a shame, because cava has something quite distinctive to offer. As opposed to most fizz that’s made in cool parts of the world, such as England and Champagne, cava is made in the hot, dry Penedès wine region south-west of Barcelona, where grapes ripen early (the harvest should be well under way by the time you’re reading this). This typically means they don’t have to add a “dosage” (the sweet liquor that rounds out leaner, sharper base wines), which makes for drier wines that are more versatile with food. You don’t normally get that degree of richness in champagne unless you age the wine on its lees for several years. And the growing conditions make it easier for producers to go organic.

Basic cava, too, is increasingly decent and, now that prosecco prices have inched up, favourably priced as well. The slightly coarse, yeasty flavour of less expensive cavas has been replaced by an attractive creaminess that contrasts favourably with many cheap proseccos, which can taste unpleasantly thin and metallic. Also, the best examples have an impressive ability to age (I recently tasted a 2012 vintage of Codorníu’s Jaume that was quite spectacular – the best deal on that I could find is a three-bottle case at €81.60 with free shipping, or £72.73 at time of writing), so you do feel that cava gets a bit of a bum rap. Try it again if you haven’t for a while.

Four cavas to consider

Castellblanc Cava Brut

£7.49 Ocado, 11.5%

Well priced, with an appealing whiff of ice-cream soda. A good party alternative to prosecco.

Nu Allongé Cava Brut

£11.99 Virgin Wines, 11.5%

An elegant cava typical of the region’s new ultra-brut style.
Cool label, too ...

Pere Ventura Maria del Mar Gran Reserva

£16.50 Great Western Wine, 11.5%

Rich, opulent, creamy cava with a luscious touch of oak. Try it with scallops.


Jaume Cordoníu 2010

£25 Taurus Wines, 11.5%

Another serious vintage cava: better than many champagnes at the price.

matchingfoodandwine.com

This article was amended on 20 August 2018 to correct the spelling of Codorníu from Cordoníu as an earlier version had it.

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