Marta Casas: "Red wine isn't drunk because it makes you look old, while bubbles are saved from decline."

Vilanova i la GeltrúMarta Casas (Vilanova i la Geltrú, 1976) is the winemaker at the Parés Baltà winery, which produces cava and wines. In 2003, she, along with her sister-in-law, Maria Elena Jiménez, and their partners, revolutionized the winery, which, she recalls, was producing "a basic cava." A true wine and sparkling wine lover, Marta entered the Blind Tasting competition, organized by Vila Viniteca, to blindly identify fourteen wines and sparkling wines. She says her fingers were trembling when she entered the tasting room. on the distributor's website to get one of the one hundred and thirty-five registrationswhich were finished in two minutes and fifty-four seconds.

Parés Baltà produces a total volume of 700,000 bottles (around 600,000 of which are cava; the rest, still wine), using certified biodynamic grapes, and has two hundred hectares of vineyards. Marta is a leading figure as a winemaker and producer. I interview her one afternoon in her hometown, Vilanova i la Geltrú, and ask her mainly about her perspective on the Penedès region, as a producer of sparkling wines, and about the world of wine in general.

Do your children show any interest in the family winery?

— Both are studying business administration. They are in their first and third years, respectively, and it's precisely at these ages that they've begun to show interest. They enjoy wine tastings. They know how complicated the life of a farmer is. And they see that keeping the houses on each property well-maintained, along with the land, could have a future for renting them out.

How do you imagine the Penedès landscape in twenty years with the younger generations at the helm?

— I hope they preserve the landscape, that they have a passion for doing the best they can with the native grapes, which reflect our identity. I also hope there are more women in leadership positions at the wineries.

You are optimistic.

— I know the wine world is generally struggling. Younger generations aren't loyal to wine for many reasons. One is that they no longer see it being drunk at home. The porrón (a traditional Spanish wine pitcher) isn't on family tables when they eat lunch or dinner. And that's if they even have a family meal at all.

Is everyone in the wine world affected?

— Mostly, red wine, which has taken a huge nosedive. Red wine isn't drunk anymore because it's considered old-fashioned, aggressive. On the other hand, sparkling wines are holding their own because they're fun and different.

In the Penedès region, sparkling wines are made using a method that is not the traditional one; that is to say, it is made prosecco.

— There's a large winery that believed making Cava (minimum 9 months of aging) or Champagne (15 months of aging) meant having immobilized capital; the money slips away during the aging period because those are costs that don't materialize. And what's inside the bubbles that's immediate? proseccowhich you can have on the market in a minimum of twenty-one days. This group has seen an opportunity to improve costs by doing the style prosecco in the Penedès region, because they already did it in Italy. The same group makes Champagne in Champagne, and also Cava in the Penedès itself. The point is that Cava and Champagne are made using a traditional method, which means a second alcoholic fermentation inside the bottle; in contrast, the Charmat method means obtaining sparkling wine through a second fermentation of the wine inside a pressurized stainless steel tank. Therefore, with this latter method, they avoid the minimum nine-month aging requirement for Cava. So the prosecco You make it and put it up for sale almost immediately; cava and champagne take time to store in the cellar.

I have tried in Italy prosecco guard.

— I took a trip to Vénet with a group of friends, and we tasted wines and sparkling wines in the Penedès region. We were amazed by the technology used by the wineries that produce them. Furthermore, they preserve the landscape and have revived a method that was also used here in the past. prosecco The maximum on-call period is three months.

Everyone in Penedès knows that Parés Baltà almost left the Cava DO and joined Corpinnat before the pandemic.

— Yes, in 2018 we considered launching our brand because we share a similar philosophy, and therefore we completed the two audits required of wineries that want to take the step. 2020 was supposed to be the final year, but then we backed out because of the pandemic. We were terrified of a major setback: we weren't coming to our markets, and we had loans to pay. And since at Corpinnat all sparkling wines must have a minimum of eighteen months of aging, we realized that we couldn't continue producing our basic cava, the one we sold most often. So we decided against it. This very cava I'm talking about is the one we sell primarily in Canada.

After the pandemic, the Cava DO began to implement new regulations.

— And good. In 2022, they introduced new regulations: they created the category of "integrated producer," which means labeling wineries that carry out the entire process: that is, we make cava with our own grapes and our own wine. And there are currently fourteen of us in the Cava DO. Before, there were fifteen, but two have left: one has gone to Clàssic Penedès. and the other in CorpinnatI should also mention that the Cava DO was very active during the pandemic. They did a lot of promotion, online tastings that people from all over the world joined. I remember being at home at midnight, which was harvest time, and I was sitting on the sofa doing tastings with people from all over the world.

They made more regulations.

— Yes. They distinguished the cava from the rest of the Cava DO with new names so that consumers know which region it's from. That's when the names Condados de Barcelona - Valles del río Anoia-Foix came out to refer to the Penedès, which I know makes everyone look strange when I say that name.

Why are they giving you strange looks?

— Because it should be said PenedèsBut the Cava DO is like the story of a creature born feet first, then having its back ripped open. It's the same thing. The Cava DO incorporated Requena, Rioja, and Extremadura, in addition to Catalonia, because Spain joined the European Union, and this is the heartbreaking story of Cava made in our country. However, it's important to remember that the Cavas de Guarda Superior, As with all wines from the Penedès DO, this year they are 100% organic, and this fact is unique in the world.

Have you considered rejoining Corpinnat?

— We're considering it. In fact, many wineries in the Penedès region are currently thinking about it because we're in a time of crisis: there are only three sparkling wine producers, on the one hand; and the two major brands, Freixenet and Codorniu, are now foreign-owned and have stopped producing the millions of bottles they used to. However, the marketing for the Cava DO is excellent, and the best thing they're doing is having influencers at the Cava Academy.

Will he get out?

— I hope so, but it could be that Henkel, in order to revive its own company, will produce almost everything it manufactures. proseccoI hope it doesn't happen, butAnd TV3's New Year's Eve broadcast has already been done with beer.It could be that in the Penedès one of the large wineries will make prosecco mostly. And I'll tell you one thing for sure: in the Penedès region, some wineries make prosecco which come at 9 euros, and the cava is sold on the market for 3.

Finally, what do you think will happen to Corpinnat?

— It's a whole new world, and they've worked hard for the consumer, who isn't stupid and knows that there are cavas on the market for two or three euros that are junk. One of the two largest wineries in the Penedès region, with foreign capital, sets a higher price for the prosecco That's for cava, so that says it all.