The Penedès winemaker who has produced his first sparkling wine with 2,000 bottles and has joined Corpinnat

FrostGelida winemaker Pep Bages explains two unexpected developments: he has launched his first sparkling wine and has joined Corpinnat after undergoing a total of three audits in which the collective brand verified that the method he uses to produce it complies with all regulatory standards. For Corpinnat, Demost, as the winemaker's winery is called, means incorporating the seventeenth winery, while also getting closer to the forecasts announced by the former board of directors (formed by producers Ton Mata and Xavi Nadal), and by the current one (producers Pere Llopart and Roc Gramona). They will end the year with almost twenty Corpinnat wineriesThus, the sparkling winemaking industry is expanding. They will reach twenty by late 2025 and early 2026, and they are working toward a day when they will no longer count due to the dozens of wineries that will have joined.

But back to Gelida. After a few winding curves in the road, leaving the town behind, you reach the winemaker's family home. It's small and discreet, and once you pass through a gray metal shutter, you'd have no idea that inside are the vats that have allowed Pep Bages to produce his only sparkling wine, the brut Nature Arter.

From game to profession

To tell the story of it all, Pep goes back to his childhood. "My grandfather and father were grape harvesting, and I have childhood memories of throwing myself into the breeze, which was hot, and then being booed for doing so," he explains. As a child, it was a game; as an adult, he understood it was an illusion, and so he took it seriously almost twenty years ago, in 2006. So, he began training, and at home he began testing sparkling wines: "In 2006, I crushed the grapes with my feet; in 2007, I bought a jack. The training path has been long, and included specific courses, as well as work in wineries, such as Vins el Cep and the Covides cooperative. In 2011, he bought more vineyards. "I took it seriously, and always set a goal for myself: to make my sparkling wines," Pep adds.

In 2021, he named his dream: Demost Winery, because the origin of sparkling wine is grape juice, the must. "If I opted for my last name, I thought it would create confusion about origins," he explains. And with the chosen name, he made his first sparkling wine, a single-varietal Xarel lo, which is released on the market with a 24-month aging period. While Corpinnat regulations stipulate that sparkling wines must be aged for a minimum of 18 months, winemaker Pep Bages has outgrown them by months. Having launched onto the market, he couldn't have been more confident in counting a few more months. In total, the Nature Arter sparkling wine from the Demost winery has 2,165 bottles, from the 2023 harvest, and will sell for between 24 and 25 euros. "I have fears and concerns, of course, because I wonder how the market will react," says Bages, who adds that until now, while making everything at home, he sold cases of sparkling wines to friends and family. Now everything is different. He has the registered trademark, is part of Corpinnat (after passing three audits in 2023, 2024, and 2025), and the sparkling wine will reach retail outlets.

At his side, Corpinnat's vice president, Roc Gramona, says that the Demost winery worked with "the Corpinnat spirit," and that the audits only confirmed this. In other words, Gramosa continues, "the Demost winery complied with everything without even knowing it was Corpinnat." The expression "Corpinnat spirit" means, in the jargon of the brand's producers, that the winemaker has their own vineyards, harvests them by hand, carries out the entire winery production (i.e., pressing and vinification on the estate), and ages for a minimum of eighteen, thirty, and sixty months. Pep's first sparkling wine lasts twenty-four months, and over time, it will be aged for another two months.

To continue, Gramona emphasizes that The Corpinnat brand was created "to transform the territory and not to create a private brand"It's the phrase that the former management also used, and that Gramona repeats time and again, exemplifying it with the case of winemaker Pep Bages. "It's a reality in the Penedès; we have winemakers who want to make their own sparkling wine, and not have to sell their grapes. He's a relevant figure, and we need more like him, like Pep, who started from scratch," says Gramona, adding that in the case of sparkling wines, one could understand the production using the same range, and sparkling wines as well; on the other hand, some do everything in the restaurant, from start to finish, just as we do at Corpinnat," Roc Gramona points out.

The Corpinnat collective brand accepts in its regulations that wineries can purchase grapes at a specific percentage, but must then have a three-year purchase agreement with the vineyard owner to ensure the winemaker has financial security. "We would like the figure of the winemaker, who is not a winemaker, to be one as well, but we must recognize it because it is a reality in the Penedès region," concludes Roc.

Regarding the recent grape harvest, the vice president maintains that "Corpinnat has been the only one to raise the price per kilo purchased, which has been at least 0.92 cents, after which each winery has paid more, but never less." The brand seeks a fair price that adds value to the grapes and, ultimately, to the entire winemaking process. However, Gramona acknowledges that this is still far from what the Champagne region pays, which pays around six euros per kilo. "We agree that we are far from six euros, but we are the only ones in the region to have doubled the price of purchased grapes in recent years." And they have done so in a year in which "everyone in the Penedès has lowered the price per kilo of purchased grapes," concludes Roc Gramona.