Manuel Raventós i Negra: "My son Pepe is doing a great job to move forward a new designation of origin for sparkling wines and to do so equitably with the winegrowers"

Saint Sadurní of AnoiaI interview Manuel Raventós i Negra (Barcelona, 1947) in the library of the family estate, at Raventós i Blanc, located in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. The winery is majestic, of a circular architecture, respectful of nature and of the great oak tree, today propped up, which is the emblem of the house, of all the labels of the sparkling wines they produce. Codorníu is linked to his personal and family history, which he has studied in great depth. Manuel Raventós is a wise man, who knows the country well, from the cultivation of tomatoes and rice in the Ebro Delta, where he worked for years as an agricultural engineer, to the functioning of the economy –he worked at La Caixa (now CaixaBank) for 25 years and was part of the governing bodies of companies in which La Caixa held shares, such as Abertis, Repsol or Aigües de Barcelona.

In this label of the foam that you offer me, I see your face profile.

— Yes. It's a Raventós i Blanc from 2018 that bears my name. It has eight years of aging, and look at it, it's fresh, it's made with xarel·lo, single varietal. On the label we say we have been winegrowers since 1497, because I found a census, after a plague, in which Llorenç Codorníu from Can Codorníu appears. Now I have found a document from before 1497. We would have to amend all the labels, because our history, the history of sparkling wines in Penedès, is even older.

Let's remember her. You created the Raventós i Blanc winery with your father Josep Maria Raventós i Blanc after leaving the family winery, Codorníu, in 1982.

— Yes, first we left, and then we created Raventós i Blanc in 1986. Twenty days after signing at the notary's and with a wine we had made in a rented winery, my father died. Suddenly. Of a heart attack while fishing in New Zealand. He was 63 years old. I was left alone, at 38 years old, in a newly created winery. My mother, a widow, in her sixties and eleven children! I was the eldest; the youngest, Esteban, was twenty.

Your father played an important role in the creation of the Cava Designation of Origin.

— My father was the president of the Regulatory Council of Cava, and the Minister of Agriculture at the time told him: "Josep Maria, we have two problems. The first is that your relatives at Codorníu want to include Raïmat when you want the Penedès and part of the Conca de Barberà to be within the DO Cava. And the second, is my problem, which is that the National Institute of Appellation of Origin (INDO) will be left without managing any appellation of origin if I transfer the DO Cava to Catalonia. So you have a problem with your cousins, and I have it with the ministers".

What happened then?

— The minister told him: "Don't worry; in Brussels they will tell us that it makes no sense to invent a new designation of origin, and everything will be resolved." In February 1986, the minister went to Brussels, but a month later my father died, and his cousin, from Codorníu, replaced him on the Cava Regulatory Council. And, furthermore, they replaced the Minister of Agriculture. Then, the idea of cava was left in the hands of large companies, which did not want winegrowers to control the price. They promoted its consolidation as a method, so that the origin would not be important, nor the winegrower. That is to say, the complete opposite of what champagne did.

That is why the DO Cava can be made in La Rioja, in Valencia and in Extremadura.

— Yes, because they consider that the origin is not important. If my father had not died suddenly, if they had not replaced the minister, everything would have been different.

While your father negotiated how the DO Cava should be, he also set up his own winery with you.

— We wanted to make an estate cava. We created Raventós i Blanc, with his two surnames; his father was called Josep Maria Raventós i Blanc, with the idea of making a great estate cava. It was a time when Codorníu, the cousins, and Freixenet were growing in volume, they wanted to sell volume, and we didn't. That's why my father left Codorníu. When his cousin, Manuel Raventós Artés, became president of the Cava Regulatory Council, that's when the cava war happened.

The cava war was due to the alleged traps that large wineries made in the production.

— Yes. Manuel Raventós Arté argued with Freixenet because they believed that the cava was being released to the market before nine months of aging. All of this led to a great deal of disrepute for cava, which harmed us because it made it impossible for us to export the Raventós i Blanc that we were producing.

Pick up the thread of your family's history. Today we would call them entrepreneurs.

— In the Codorníu family, later Raventós, there have been innovations because the generations worked the land, were involved in it, and because changes in leadership happened early, with fathers and young sons. These are two conclusions of mine.

How did it all begin?

— The great-grandfathers made mistelas; they exported them from Vilanova i la Geltrú to the Spanish colonies of Central America. Here there was already an important innovation. There was a time when they had to leave the house in Sant Sadurní because they were in danger due to the Carlist War. They went to live in Barcelona, and the man joined the Institut Agrícola Català de Sant Isidre, where he learned to do the fermentations, the champenoise method. Contrary to the colleagues he met there, he wanted to do the second fermentation with the white varieties of Penedès, with xarel·lo, and he made a sample of it.

Then comes the great-grandfather.

— The great-grandfather got involved quickly; what he said about the two keys to our family. And he went to France because he knew that phylloxera was there, which was killing the vineyard, and he wanted to see what was happening. He was a farmer who worked the land, and he was aware of what was happening. Although the great-grandfather did not know how to speak French, he went to France, and there he wrote a diary about everything he saw, because his father had commissioned him to do so. I found the great-grandfather's writings in the attic of the house, wrapped in newspaper, in a cupboard.

Did he return to Sant Sadurní after the stay in France?

— Yes, because his father died. Here is a key moment, because phylloxera arrived in Catalonia, and he not only did not go bankrupt but also created Codorníu. He was 26 years old. His name was Manuel Raventós Domènech, and since he had seen the behavior of phylloxera in France, he decided to uproot the vineyard, and replant with American rootstock. He had learned everything in France. Since he had no partners, winegrowers to give him land, he was able to do it. And then he made more decisions: he did not want to continue making mistelas, which were made with red wine, because he knew, from the press, that Spain would lose its colonies, and he also did not want to make red wines. He took what his father had learned in Barcelona, the champenoise method, and made a business out of it. I know all this because it is written. The American rootstock he replanted is grafted with xarel·lo. He started from scratch, with xarel·lo, because he was a farmer who knew his stuff, who was aware of what was happening in the world.

The great-grandfather succeeded with the champenoise method.

— Yes, and since he was a smart man, he contacted the architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch to build the cellars for him. I have the documentation that says how much it cost him. At the beginning of the 20th century, the house, the estate, and the business were all his. In 1926 he created Codorníu S.A. On one hand, there are the facilities, the cellar, the stocks. On the other, the estate, the house, and the brand. Everything is his, but he has it separated. In 1930 he died, and he left my grandfather, the eldest son, the estate and the house. He left the brand, the company Codorníu S.A., divided among the six sons and daughters he had.

So, from 1930 onwards, your grandfather owned the estate, the house, and a portion of the Codorníu shares.

— He became the director. After the Civil War, he was affected, and my father, who was studying chemistry in Sarrià, joined him. My father was very young when he joined Codorníu. In 1982, he left Codorníu, and in 1986 I went with him, on his own project, Raventós i Blanc, where we apply what he wanted: quality, not volume.

Finally, last August I spoke with your son, Pepe, and I noticed a passion for sparkling wines, like the one you have now passed on to me.

— Pepe, passionate about the land of Penedès, is doing a great job to move forward a new world-class sparkling wine designation of origin, and he wants to do it equitably with the best winemakers in Penedès. The incorporation of winemakers with real weight, with a grape price-setting table, is very important, and to do it inclusively, in the Burgundy style.