José Peñín: "The Cava DO makes no sense and should be eliminated."

Barcelona"The last 50 years have been the most important period in the millennial history of wine," says the founder of the Peñín Guide of wines, José Peñín (Santa Colomba de la Vega, León, 1943), because "there have never been so many changes" as in recent decades. With the aim of giving back to wine everything it has provided him and nourishing new generations with his experience, the veteran wine writer has just published the book My memories of wine (Planeta Gastro): In 700 pages, he recounts 50 years of experiences in the wine-producing regions of Spain and other countries, as well as with some of the most prominent wine personalities.

Regarding his travels, which Peñín began in the late 1970s, he says that it's where he found "the most civilized wine" and that it's among the wine-producing regions to which he dedicates the most pages in the book. In an interview with ARA, he recounts that when he traveled from Empordà to Terra Alta, he realized that, excluding sherry—a wine widely exported to the United Kingdom—in Catalonia "there was a much more pronounced commercial dynamic than in La Rioja." The book particularly highlights the export-oriented spirit of Tarragona wines, at a time when blends of wines from here and there were made, rendering designations of origin "worthless."

According to Peñín, "Tarragona wine was, along with sherry, the best known outside our borders, not so much for its local origins, but as the fruit of the work of merchants who, without shame, mixed Catalan blood with the cheap wines of Castile-La Mancha and Valencia." The critic does not overlook other practices questioned today. He states that "Port wine has possibly been the most subject to fraud in Spain" or that Conca de Barberà even supplied some Basque wineries with chacolí, although its source of income was whites for cava, the leading sparkling wine in Catalonia.

What to do with cava?

Regarding cava, Peñín brings up historical aspects, such as when it was called champagne, the opening of new wineries in the United States by Freixenet and Codorníu, or the episode he calls "the black sheep of Codorníu", in allusion to the family breakup that led to the creation of the Raventós y Blanc winery. He also highlights the qualitative leap, if we bear in mind that in the 2000 edition of the Peñín Guide Only two cavas had 90 points or more – the most highly regarded – and in the 2023 edition there were already 224. However, the book does not say a word about the most recent crisis that has led cava producers to move towards Corpinnat or Clàssic Penedès.

"There's nothing that bores me more than visiting sparkling wine cellars," Peñín admits in the book when talking about champagne, adding that sparkling wines that undergo secondary fermentation in the bottle – like champagne or cava itself – are, due to their production, the "most manipulated" wines. Even so, in the interview we delve into the cava crisis, the origin of which may lie in its original sin: that with the creation of the Cava DO, territories outside of Catalonia would be incorporated. "Cava is a global name that doesn't identify Catalonia, even though Catalonia has the best cavas and a greater number of brands," Peñín tells ARA, and continues: "What is Catalan? Priorat, Terra Alta, Empordà... all the other DOs and those outside of the DO but in Catalonia."

He recalls that he was a pioneer in writing in the early 1980s that "it was absurd to create a DO like Cava" and that he considered that it should be a sparkling wine from the territory, something that was not accepted, so "the big problem with cava has been that, by extending the name cava throughout Spain, it becomes more of a type of wine and not a wine. In response to this, when asked if the existence of the DO Cava makes any sense, Peñín admits that "it doesn't," and therefore believes that it should be "eliminated as a DO."

The critic explains that "in the end, cava becomes something generic to all of Spain, and then we destroy the geoclimatic peculiarity of the territory," so he asks that if the DOs usually cover whites, rosés, and reds, "why isn't this done with cava?" In other words, he defends that "cavas should be another product of the DOs, not only those of Catalonia, but also those of the rest of Spain," in the same way as what happens with sparkling wines. cremating in some French appellations of origin. In any case, he believes that "the Catalans have been the ones who have done the most to improve the quality" of cava and highlights Corpinnat's long-aged sparkling wines, "the great crude oil of Spanish sparkling wines."

The human hand is essential in wine

After half a century, Peñín has concluded that "the human being is the most important thing in wine," even more so than factors such as climate. From Catalonia, he praises Álvaro Palacios, one of the visionaries who put Priorat on the map; Joan Àngel Lliberia, from the Edetària winery (DO Terra Alta), who exemplifies the 21st-century winemaker; and the head sommelier of El Celler de Can Roca, Josep Pitu Roca, who says he "makes wine more important than it is," or Quim Vila, owner of Vila Viniteca, a distributor he defines as the "Spotify of wine" for its 6,000 wines. When asked if he would name more women, he doesn't hesitate to say Sara Pérez: "She's the best winemaker in Catalonia."

The founder of the Peñín Guide He celebrates the quality that Spanish wines have achieved through the globalization of the best winemaking techniques, although he regrets that it comes at the expense of sacrificing geographical diversity: "Let us rejoice in drinking the best and most numerous wines in history, even if they increasingly resemble each other." He is not one to throw personal barbs either, and in response to this he states: "Because of my age, I have the privilege of saying whatever I want." He says this in reference to the Familia Torres winery, which he presents as an example of internationalization and experimentation, but not without its "shadow cast" due to the scores its wines receive: "I don't quite understand how Torres, who makes excellent wines in Catalonia, has created wineries in Ribera del Duero and La Rioja."

Looking ahead, Peñín predicts that winemaking and aging regulations will be relaxed, or that the quality gap between high-end wines and the rest will be narrowed even further. However, he believes that cult wines and supermarket wines will have an easier time, while for the mid-range segment, he sees a bleaker future due to a lack of buyers: "Many wineries will quietly close." Nor does it help, in his opinion, "the zero-alcohol philosophy" and the increasing preference for the Ministry of Health's criteria over those of Agriculture.