This is the new winery that has decided to leave the Cava DO to enter Corpinnat.

FrostIt all started in 2009, when Eduard Viader was 21 years old, studying agricultural engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in Castelldefels, and rented a space in the Santacana Roig winery in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, in the same town where he lived and where his family owned what was once the family's winery.

He didn't own any vineyards; he bought the grapes and the base wine, and he did it more as a personal experiment than a business. In 2011, he launched the first bottles within the Cava DO, and christened them with a name that tried at all costs to avoid his surname: Viader, originating in Santa Coloma de Farners. "I chose the name Muscandia inspired by the scientific name of the vine." Vitis muscandinia, because my surname in Sant Sadurní was associated with the pharmacy and the clinical and industrial analysis laboratory, and I thought it was a good idea to stand out," says Eduard, who adds that, when he now thinks about it, he realizes that the name he chose was not a good one because Muscandia denotes moscato, which is a variety that he hardly used and which could connote little seriousness.

The fact is that, when he finished his studies, he began working at other wineries, but he didn't forget his own project, which he was gradually developing. So much so that 2016 marked a turning point when he found the 14th-century Can Rossell de la Llena farmhouse in Gelida, which he bought because it had an attached winery dating back to the 19th century next door. "Everything had been in ruins since the 1960s, and I set about rebuilding the winery. There's still a lot of work to be done at the farmhouse," he explains. In 2020, he finished the work on the winery and began winemaking in his own space. He also already had ten hectares of his own vineyard. So he decided to dedicate himself 100 percent to it. And that was the case until last December, when he sent a request with a registration date to the DO Cava, notifying him of his intention to cease being part of the designation of origin. It liquidated the production portion of the last quarter and received an inspection audit, as is customary in these cases, which notified and verified its stocks.

Tags with the name Corpinnat

Entering the Corpinnat brand this March wasn't a two-month process. Years have passed since Eduard realized that his way of working was closer to the brand than to the appellation of origin. "It's been a long process, in which I've undergone Corpinnat audits that have verified how I harvested, by hand, how I made the base wine, all in my winery, because at Corpinnat the only thing that comes through the door is grapes," he says, adding that many wineries affiliated with the Cava DO typically don't have a press. "Many cava producers have never brought grapes into their winery because they buy the finished base wine; it's a unique situation," Viader reflects.

An interesting fact: Eduard had to sell an ancestral wine made with Moscato and Sauvignon Blanc that didn't fit the Corpinnat brand's regulations: "To get in, I had to sell everything first."

And that's how it's been established in Corpinnat, which broadens its horizons with the number fourteen. Everything is so innovative that the brand still counts them one by one. The fourteenth winery, Viader, has five sparkling wines, one of which is a magnum. "I also make rancio and mistela wines for my own consumption, and I offer them during visits because I want to maintain its tradition," says Eduard. At the winery, he has a vegetable garden and some chickens. "It's hard work, pulling out the weeds and, above all, protecting the chickens from foxes, who devour them in a flash."

By the end of this month, and especially in April, the labels that will be called Corpinnat will already be attached to their sparkling wines. Two of the sparkling wines are aged between eighteen and thirty months (Les Eretes and Tres Villas Rosado). The remaining three (Anhel Blanc de Noirs and La Llena, including the magnum), between three and five years. They are aged under a cork stopper.

Eduard shared everything with enthusiasm. "It's a great feeling because I believe in the Penedès, because the Corpinnat brand enhances the area, which is under pressure from urban development due to being so close to the metropolitan area." "Enhancing the value of the Penedès vineyards also means not thinking about volume, which devalues viticulture." That's why his winery's motto is "The value of being small," because being small allows you to value the entire process, from the vineyard to the final product, including paying a fair price for the grapes. "If we pay fair prices to farmers, then farmers will understand that their land is precious and profitable, and they won't think about selling it to build industrial estates or solar panels," says Eduard. He is 37 years old. His 21 years, when he rented a space in a winery in Sant Sadurní, are long gone. When he thinks about the Cava DO, he affirms that "the wineries that have the greatest influence within the designation of origin are those that generate the greatest volume; they prefer to supply market demand at any price, and this is their only concern." In his opinion, "Corpinnat is committed to added value; it is a market leader, and the way to be strong is through associations and not going it alone." For all these reasons, Eduard Viader maintains that his winery is now part of "the Champions of Sparkling Wines."