DO Cava loses a winery of two and a half million bottles: Juvé & Camps moves to Corpinnat

Saint Sadurní d'AnoiaIn Sant Sadurní d’Anoia and in the Penedès region in general, everyone knew it would eventually happen, but no one knew when. The day has arrived. The Juvé & Camps winery, from Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, has abandoned the Cava designation of origin to enter its annual production of two and a half million sparkling wines into the Corpinnat brand. After two exhaustive audits in which Corpinnat verified that the winery meets the requirements to be included, Juvé & Camps submitted its withdrawal request to the Regulatory Council of Cava last Wednesday. "We have taken a natural step, and it was a decision made with great prudence," explains the CEO, Meritxell Juvé, adding that in a company that works with the future in mind, everything is well thought out. She says this because Juvé & Camps sparkling wines have a resting period of six to seven years before they are released to the market, and because the winery is centenary. "My father is 83 years old and is aware of everything. In fact, he himself says he won't make a mistake with the words Cava or Corpinnat, because he always says he makes Juvé & Camps," says his daughter.

The natural steps that have led them to Corpinnat are organic vineyards, hand-picked harvest, the predominance of classic Penedès varieties, complete winemaking at the same winery (meaning, base wine or must cannot be purchased), a minimum aging of eighteen months in the bottle, and having a sparkling wine with thirty months and another with sixty months of aging, and the obligation to pay a minimum guaranteed price to the farmer. "We comply with everything, and not from now, but for many years," points out Juvé, who is aware that Corpinnat has also set the limit of 2035 for the chardonnay and pinot noir varieties. "We have vineyards of both varieties, but it's little compared to the traditional varieties, and besides, we are a winery that also makes still wines, so within the DO Penedès we will be able to continue with both varieties," she comments.

In the Penedès, space for everyone

With Juvé & Camps, Corpinnat adds 22 wineries from Penedès, but it so happens that the winery produces almost as many sparkling wines as the collective brand had in total, which was three million. "We are a small region, we all know each other well, they expected this to happen", says Meritxell Juvé, who points out that both she and her father have good friends in the DO Cava and also in Corpinnat, in Clàssic Penedès and in the Conca del riu Anoia. Furthermore, "we believe that the DO Cava has done things well in recent years, especially since the first producers left to found Corpinnat, because from then on they began to give value to wines with long aging periods". Furthermore, Meritxell Juvé believes that "the DO Cava has a beautiful path ahead, which is a path sown with diversity, with different business models". "But we feel comfortable with Corpinnat to explain who we are", she says.

Currently, Juvé considers that the final customer understands more easily what Corpinnat means, which is "great sparkling wines from Penedès". "In fact, as producers, we owe this change we have made to Penedès, and I think of the change we already made forty years ago when we decided to make brut nature with long aging, which now everyone takes for granted, but it hasn't been made for that long". The general director also maintains that Corpinnat has managed to enhance sparkling wines and the territory. "We share the goal of making Penedès one of the best sparkling wine regions in the world".

The CEO of Juvé & Camps, fourth generation of the family, does not consider that its entry into Corpinnat will shake the DO Cava. "If we overcame phylloxera, we can say that we are a very resilient territory, and in addition there is room for everyone, there is room to coexist happily and peacefully. We ourselves started in 1796, which is the date of the first vineyard, and we have arrived to this day". Juvé insists that Corpinnat and the DO Cava complement each other, which is why he emphasizes that there is room for everyone. Added to this is the fact that the bubble is not deflating, even though Juvé considers that "the current situation is to seek value and not volume, that is to say, it is time to do things very well done". In other words, the winery from Sant Sadurní d’Anoia is increasingly committed to high-end ranges, long aging.

To continue, the president of Corpinnat, Pere Llopart, enthusiastically values the entry of the Juvé & Camps winery into the brand. "It gives us solidity, because it is a winery of significant magnitude, which will give us visibility; we will reach more glasses", he says, and comments that the path they started in 2018 with a brave commitment, leaving the DO Cava, is now consolidated with wineries like Juvé & Camps. "We all have a commitment to work for the territory, and we believe that we must go together on a path that we have traced and regulated". In this regard, the vice-president, Roc Gramona, maintains that the entry of Juvé & Camps "will have a pull effect towards other wineries that are already applying to join", that is to say, he considers that due to the volume and especially the quality of the winery's sparkling wines, there will be more wineries that will consider meeting the requirements to join the brand. Roc Gramona also believes that, as has happened with the latest incorporations, the Corpinnat brand is endorsed and confirmed.

Finally, the DO Cava, in a statement issued last Thursday, explained that it recognized the work of the Juvé & Camps winery. It also stated that the DO Cava is consolidated, with more than one hundred and fifty years of history and with three hundred wineries supporting more than six thousand winegrowers.