A Spanish winemaker ditches cava for sparkling wine with native grapes

Pepe Raventós crouched and grabbed a rock to show me. There, in the chunk of limestone, I could discern several small marine fossils, testament to the time more than 5 million years ago before the Mediterranean retreated and revealed the fertile lands of the Anoia River basin.

“This is the true essence of what we make here,” Raventós said. “It’s not just the history of the family, it’s about this soil and the minerality it expresses through the grapes,” he said. Those would be grapes native to the region, especially xarel-lo, the mainstay of the sparkling wines from Raventós i Blanc winery, and sumoll, a red variety.