Cava-Making Workshop in Avinyonet del Penedès
Our recipe brings together all the ingredients for you to create your very own cava with your own hands. We offer you an experience unlike any other you’ve had before at a family winery. Craft the cava you’ve always dreamed of, guided and supported by our winemakers and professionals.
To begin, we invite you to smell, taste, and observe our products so you can choose the base wine you like most. Not all vineyards within the Cava Denomination of Origin share the same characteristics. The blend is like a love story between Xarel·lo, Macabeu, and Parellada grapes and Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc. Guided by the ArtCava team, you’ll get to step into the shoes of a winemaker for a moment.
Disgorge a bottle of cava!
Do you want to learn how we bottle our cava, or would you rather take an active part in the disgorgement of the bottles? Disgorgement remains one of the many artisan tasks still carried out by hand in our winery. It is a process used to remove the yeasts that, after settling, have collected in the neck of the bottle. The challenge lies in not breaking the glass, removing all the solid sediment, and losing as little cava as possible in the process.
In the production room
Wearing the mandatory protective gear (face shield and apron), we approach the bottles positioned upside down, their yeasts solidified by cold. We clean the cava bottles by submerging them in a bucket of clean water and move over to the uncapping machine. The bottle must be placed at a 45° angle and, holding it firmly with one hand, we use the other to remove the metal cap. The pressure built up inside the cava bottle forces the sediment out in a single burst, leaving the cava clean and free of impurities.
Corked and secured
Next, we move to the machine that seals the bottle for good with a cork stopper. Right beside it is the machine that fits the crown cap and the muselet — the wire cage that prevents the cork from being forced out by the pressure of the cava.
The instructions are straightforward: keep the bottle perfectly upright, lower the cage, press firmly, and twist the wire three times. No more, no less — just enough to fix the cork securely and allow for easy handling and opening later on. We’re now halfway through our cava-making workshop, with only the finishing touches remaining.
Time to make it beautiful
Before moving on, we’ll give the cava bottle a foam bath to leave the glass spotless and free of any handling marks. We’ll dry the bottle with a cloth and carry out a visual inspection of its contents. Holding it up to a strong light, and thanks to the transparency of the glass, we’ll be able to check whether any sediment remains or whether the disgorgement was carried out correctly — leaving us with a clear, clean cava.
We then place the bottle into the slot of another machine, which applies the paper capsule. While this part of the bottle is purely decorative today, in the mid-19th century it served to protect the cork from being gnawed by mice. Once the capsule is in place, we move the bottle to a different slot on the same machine and push it in fully to compress the capsule, ensuring it is firmly fixed to the glass with no risk of coming loose. With the bottle now capsuled, we move on to labelling.
Labelling
Our journey through the cava-making workshop reaches its final stage with the last finishing step. Although it comes last, it is just as important as all the others. This is the labelling, and we’ll be doing it by hand too. Simple, yet highly significant — the different labels are applied one by one to their corresponding positions. The round label placed at the top of the bottle comes in 3 different colours: white, green, or black. These colours indicate the amount of time the bottle has spent ageing in the cellar, as established by the Cava Regulatory Council (9, 15, or 30 months).
The labels on a cava bottle tell us a great deal: the brand, the Denomination of Origin, the type of product, and its particular characteristics. In our case, they also feature the image of our three partners: Ignasi Romeu (owner and expert in administration and finance), Èric Enguita (the winemaker and marketing expert), and Ramon Masip (the wine tourism expert).
And don’t forget the back label, which shows the grape varieties, the disgorgement date, the tasting notes, and pairing suggestions. Did we mention you get to take home the bottle you’ve cared for so lovingly?
Now it’s time to enjoy
We invite you to take a stroll around our centuries-old farmhouse or enjoy a bite to eat in our outdoor spaces. Throughout the year we offer plenty of gastronomic experiences to enjoy with friends or family. We look forward to welcoming you!