Pepe Raventós (Barcelona, 1974) left the Cava Designation of Origin (DO) in 2012 due to his dissatisfaction with a model that, in his words, "has confused counting bottles as a measure of success" and has sidelined the "creation of value" for the farmer, the consumer, and the territory. Over the past few years, the general director of Raventós i Blanc has worked to create a new DO for sparkling wines that groups together the wineries of Penedès that wish to commit to quality and compete with other prestigious regions such as Champagne or French Burgundy. Coinciding with the start of the harvest, Pepe Reventós vindicates the history and properties of the Penedès terroir for producing highly recognized grapes and believes that the region is facing a unique opportunity to take the definitive step forward.After a few years of drought, he maintains that the sparkling wines of Penedès are facing a great opportunity to build their future wine-growing model. For what reasons?

I 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, with 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 with shareholding participation from La Caixa, such as Abertis, Repsol or Aigües de Barcelona.

Raventós y Blanc's general manager, Pepe Raventós (Barcelona, 1974), is moving to New York with his family at the end of August to be closer to distributors and the American market. This will be his second time away, having lived there from 2011 to 2016, the year he returned to Sant Sadurní, where he has lived until now with his partner and four children. The decision is both a family and professional one, as it became known yesterday that European wines and sparkling wines will have a 15% tariff, which Pepe Raventós will not be able to avoid even though he resides in New York. He won't be able to avoid it because the product he will import comes from the Penedès region, but Pepe Raventós believes that by living in the market where he primarily exports, he can give a significant boost to the Sant Sadurní winery.