Where Spain gets its special sparkle

Cava. The fizz that does the biz without breaking the bank. You might crack open a bottle on a friend’s – but not a really good friend’s – birthday. Or at Christmas – especially at Christmas. Seven bottles of Cava equals one of Champagne. You do the maths. But to a Catalan, Cava means something altogether different. Catalans treat it with the sort of reverence Brazilians reserve for Candomble or the French for the Tour de France.

Were it not for just one building, Sant Sadurni d’Anoia, the home of Cava, might be just about the wine world’s most forgettable town. Driving through the Penedes in February, I’m too late for autumn’s ochres, too early for the first emerald shoots of spring. Slate-grey town blends colourlessly into muted green countryside, the only punctuation those regimented rows of gnarled vines.

Cava was first made here in 1872. Josep Raventos, back from working in France’s Champagne region, brought the techniques home to the family business. Within a decade, his xampany was a sensation – and Codorniu has become the world’s biggest producer of sparkling wine.

The family soon wanted a headquarters to match their ambition. And they had the money that was flowing from the ever-swelling stream of tiny bubbles leaving the Codorniu gates. They hired Josep Puig i Cadafalch, moderniste architect of the Casa Amatller in Barcelona, to give them a winery like no other.

Of the three buildings he designed, the reception and tasting room is the one that leaves an indelible impression. Sweeping elliptical arches and crenellated towers, echoing Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, trace the faint shape of Montserrat in the distance. Inside, two-tier chandeliers and tessellated stained glass windows wouldn’t look out of place on a Dracula film set.

“Cava is for everything,” says Marc, our Codorniu guide. “In the south, they only drink it with pudding. But a Catalan will have it as an aperitif, drink it through the meal and have it after too.” That perhaps goes some way to explaining why Puig’s winery now bottles around 60,000 gallons of Cava every day. As does the occasional Catalan habit of kick-starting the day with a glass.

Back in Barcelona, the Via Laietana in the early morning smells like Paris – of croissants and diesel. On the Carrer de Merce, on the edge of the Barri Gotic, postal workers sip Cava with the traditional breakfast of tortilla and pa amb tomaquet (bread and tomato). In the Boqueria market, enveloped by the smell of salt cod and chorizo, they sit and drink with early morning tapas.

Uptown in the Eixample, the fashionable set drink the dry house Cava with lunch. In El Xampanayet, on Carrer de Montcada, the Cava is sweet and comes in an unmarked bottle. The locals jostle at the bar, snacking on baby sardines.

Of all the wines made in the Penedes and elsewhere in Catalonia, it is Cava – named after the cellars (or cavas) in which it is stored – that remains closest to a Catalan’s heart. But, as with all things Catalan, don’t assume that the rest of Spain is in step. Cava, in an Andalusian dialect, apparently means prostitute.

First published in the Sunday Telegraph