Corpinnat continues adding wineries: Fèlix Massana Ràfols joins, with fifteen thousand bottles of sparkling wine

Saint Paul of Ordal“We are very happy”. This is how the married couple Fèlix Massana and Cristina Castillo, from the Fèlix Massana Ràfols winery, expressed themselves to explain what it means for them to be part of the collective brand Corpinnat. They began producing sparkling wines sixteen years ago, using vines and wines made at their own winery, located in Sant Pau d’Ordal, to which they have given long aging periods. The winery had been part of Covides, the Penedès wine cooperative, which includes the DO Cava and the DO Penedès, but left in 2012, when Fèlix Massana Ràfols opted for organic production. Now they have taken another step and have left the DO Cava to join Corpinnat, which brings together a total of 24 wineries and a total volume of six million bottles. “We do not want to be gardeners who look after the environment nor civil servants, but rather we want to live from our work, from making sparkling wines and wines”, affirms Fèlix Massana, who also says that this summer the grapes he sold as a winegrower to wineries that belong to the DO Cava have been “well below the cost price”.

The couple opened the winery in 2001, but they were not starting from scratch, as they had been conducting tests for many years before. Furthermore, Fèlix Massana is the fourth generation of his family to dedicate themselves to the vineyard, and he had the consulting oenologist Emili Esteve on his team, who always encouraged them to join Corpinnat as a quality seal. Of all the varieties they have planted, both white and red, the ones they use for the sparkling wines are Xarel·lo and Macabeu. With both varieties, together or separately, they produce four sparkling wines, most of them single-varietal Xarel·lo. “As a novelty, we have made a Garnacha sparkling wine, which we must give eighteen months of aging before putting it on the market,” explain Fèlix Massana and Cristina Castillo, who recall that to be part of Corpinnat, sparkling wines must have a minimum aging of eighteen months. There are many other rules they must comply with, such as being located in the Penedès, harvesting by hand, having certified organic viticulture, and producing the base wines and sparkling wines at the same winery, among others.

Four different sparkling wines

The producers explain that they had also managed to make a rosé sparkling wine, which they made with the Pinot Noir variety, but they have stopped making it because it is one of the varieties that Corpinnat has excluded from its membership: it identifies Macabeu, Xarel·lo, and Parellada as the basic ones, because they are the traditional ones and currently the ones that best withstand the onslaughts of climate change, such as high temperatures and drought.

With the four sparkling wines within Corpinnat, the producers believe they add value to them. “When we call a restaurant or a shop and explain what we do, they already know what Corpinnat means; they already know that they are sparkling wines made with organic farming, long aging, and hand-harvested,” they say. They ensure that it is easier to enter the market under the Corpinnat label, and that is why for two years they have been passing the audits that the brand required to be part of it. In total, they are a volume of fifteen or twenty thousand bottles, depending on the year, that are incorporated, and that the winery sells in Penedès, “and also in Barcelona, Japan, and the Netherlands, occasionally,” they comment.