Some bubbles from the Penedès that have made history around the world

"I'm in Sopletes, I'm going crazy. We harvested last week and today I filled my boots. Tomorrow I'm going to Recaredo," he tells me. He's Ton Mata, the simple and brilliant peasant (ah, yes... what a pleasure to say "pagés") who has achieved, with all the people of Recaredo, with the memory of his father, who had faith and genius, the coveted, historic 100 Parker points for a Catalan sparkling wine. The Enoteca Turó d'en Mota 2001 of Recaredo.The first sparkling wine in Spain, the first in the world outside of Champagne, to achieve this. This corpinnado achieves what only nine wineries in the world have achieved, all of them French: Salón, Bollinger, Krug, Louis Roederer, Jacques Selosse, Ulysse Collin, Cédric Bouchard, Egly-Ouriet, and Philipponnat.

When he says it's "Bufadores," he's talking about a personal project, the one he has with Encarna Castillo, his partner. "Encarna and I are completely unaware, because this project is a dream project," he says. When we speak, it's Monday. "We're harvesting every day, nonstop. We already harvested Turó d'en Mota, on August 25th, because the heat wave has been very intense. Last week, this week, and the next one are the strongest for us." From "Blowers, the twentieth vintage has just been released and the nineteenth is on the market. "It was a very subtle year. The pre-Covid year, the last normal year. And you know what? We will remember the twentieth vintage more because it is the year that has rained more in history than because of Covid."

It's true. We are in the Penedès. The twentieth vintage brought torrential rains. And then came the drought. History. Climate change is a drama," says this man who works wonders with bubbles. "We have only had two years below 300 liters. The 16th and the 23rd."

I ask him in which discomfort he finds more comfortable: the drought or the rain. "Because we have such a drought, I handle problems caused by excess water better. In 2020, for example, we had mildew. But you know that the following year the plant will have good vegetation. The drought is so agonizing... Every day something worse, something worse, it's a slow death. Many of our plants have died, it will take years to recover from this..."

Legally they could irrigate, but it is perhaps difficult to obtain water "sustainably." He sighs. "Watering was taboo for me, and now it's not so much. Fifteen percent of the plants have died. This is the reality."

A wise man who works magic

Perhaps with additional irrigation, the Penedès region can move forward. A dying vine, in my opinion, is a lost heritage. Economically, too, for farmers, it's extremely difficult to cultivate dryland viticulture. "It seems that with reclaimed water from the treatment plant, the groundwater table, and the desalination plant—these three sources combined—it could be solved, because we're not talking about that much water; we're talking, perhaps, 50 liters per square meter, which saves the plant, and there would be years when we wouldn't need it. The infrastructure would have to be built collectively." If we're not leaving Sopletes, he tells me: "Emotionally, we've been through such complicated harvests that this nineteenth is like one that saves us." It's the last disgorging at... 52 months! It's ethereal. It's fine, and with so much, so much aging, it has an elegance and depth that shake your heart. It's 60 percent Xarel lo, with a small portion of vinified Monastrell. It's unique. The twentieth, for example, is 90 percent Xarelo. It's a typical harvest, rain in winter, a healthy spring... The harvests that will come after this are much wilder. "The 20th was wild, but in the 19th, everything is in its place," says Ton Mata, a wise man, someone we always have to listen to, because he looks far ahead, because he works his magic.

And we return to Recaredo, the big house, the house that earned 100 points, and we move on to today's sparkling wine. It's no secret that I like it a lot, a lot. It's the Terrers. It has the depth, the seriousness, and the three elements that Ton always looks for: the aging with mothers, which gives sweetness without being sweet, with spices, vanilla. The tension, the acidity, the minerality. And the fruit, which makes us remember, and never forget, that what we drink comes from a fruit. It has these three legs. It has the liveliest acidity that makes us feel like flying. It has cream in its mouth, a bakery with display cases full of pastries, and a little bell that rings when the door opens. I'm in love with this magic.

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