Tiny Bubbles (Catalonia - Sparkling Wine day)

There were a few dusty heads around the breakfast table the next morning as we prepared for our first full day of touring. The two Matts had a beautiful breakfast prepared, fresh croissants and baguettes from the local bakery, muesli, yoghurts and fresh fruit.

Today was denoted as a sparkling wine day for obvious reasons, dear reader. It also inspired today's title Tiny Bubbles by Don Ho from 1966. I wasn't sure I'd heard this song before but it came bubbling to the surface of my memory when I played it. Enjoy. Or not.

We climbed into the vans at the scheduled 9:15am and set a course for Llopart Winery. As you know, I am wine snob. Even more so when it comes to sparkling wine, there is only one champagne. My expectations for the day were therefore not particularly high. Perhaps that's harsh, I was looking forward to the day, the jury was still out on the sparkling wine.

Random flower.  Probably a weed.

First stop was Llopart winery where we met Roger, a tour de force in his own right. He was very passionate about his work and even more so about Llopart wines. The family has been making wine on the site since 1385 and sparkling wine since 1887. Spain, like all other countries, was forced to stop using the word champagne to denote their sparkling wine in the 1970s. From that point on it became cava, so named because of their use of the underground limestone caves to store wine.

Welcome to Llopart.

The view from the winery across to Montserrat was breathtaking. Montserrat dominates the skyline and captivates you as soon as you see it.

Montserrat.

Llopart was not happy with the regulation of the use of the word 'cava' and came up with their own appellation, Corpinnat. At 600,000 bottles per year they are a boutique winery compared to some of the behemoths in Catalonia. Corpinnat age their wines for longer, grapes must be handpicked and the vineyard must be organic. Interestingly, they only press the grapes to 70% of their mass, whereas most wineries go down to 50%.

The cellar.

Roger toured us through the winery and provided several lessons in organic farming, viticulture and the entire wine making process. I'm not sure what regulations are tied to the production of cava but the end product, stamped with the Corpinnat, appellation is exceptional.

I wish I had a garage like this.

Wine tasting is quite different in Spain. The tasting pour can be the equivalent of half a glass. Luckily we were being chauffeured. We tried three different wines, all brut nature, as in no added sugar. Jayne preferred the rosé and I preferred the vintage that had spent extra time on lees. Such a pity it is not available in Australia. I purchased two bottles for around $90 AUD. You'd be hard pressed (see what I did there?) buying champagne for that price.

Our Llopart tasting.

Our next stop was Freixenet Winery, a well known cava producer, available at Dan Murphy's at home. In comparison to Llopart's 600,000 bottle production, last year Freixenet produced over 100 million. We had a tour of the winery and their cellars and we were treated to a tasting of four wines, matched with cured meats.

What's with the vintage cars?

The meats were a hit and perfectly matched to the wines, but the wine quality was no match for Llopart imho.

Empty bottles for show.

We departed, without making another purchase, and headed for the winery restaurant, adjacent to the tasting house. Here we enjoyed a three course lunch, featuring local dishes including baked eggplant, egg and foie omelette, beef and mushroom or fish hotpot, baked chocolate tart and sorbet with fresh fruit compote. 

Empty casks.

After breakfast, two tastings with cheese and charcuterie plates and lunch, we piled back into our transport to return to our hacienda for drinks and snacks if anyone could fit them in. The night was less exuberant than the first evening as we sensibly decided we needed to pace ourselves if we were going to make it through the week ahead. That's not to say that we went teetotal - some lovely local wines were consumed but it was a much earlier conclusion and the recycling the next day did not take nearly as long.

Sunset from the villa.

Until tomorrow.