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Want to know more about cava wines? Read our expert guide, then check out our guides on the best champagne, prosecco and summer wines.
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Discover why all wine benefits from chilling with our guide to chilling wine.
Not as costly as champagne, nor as popular as prosecco, cava is often overlooked when it comes to sparkling wine. For many years, Spain’s trademark fizz was rather frowned upon, seen only as cheap and cheerful pop for parties but, while it still gives bargain bubbles crisper and less sweet than most proseccos, there are now many more serious and complex cavas that can be counted among the world’s best and most interesting sparklers.
Cavas tend to be very good with food – think tapas and you won’t go far wrong. Crisps, nuts and ceviches or sashimi are great with simpler wines, while those with more age love anything fried – fish or perhaps croquetas. Pet-nats can carry more robust flavours and make a fine companion to a summery centrepiece paella. Read on for our picks of 5 of the best cavas to buy.
Best cava wines to try at a glance
- Best rosé cava: Colet Vatua! Rosé 2019, £24
- Best budget cava: Contevedo Cava Brut, £5.79
- Best supermarket cava: Codorniu Seleccion Familia Reserve Organic Cava, £12.99
- Best champagne alternative: Pere Ventura Cava, £12.95
- Best non-alcoholic cava: Vilarnau 0% Sparkling Rosé, £7
5 of the best cava wines to try
Colet Vatua! Rosé 2019
Best rosé cava
A really unusual, and unusually delicious, rosé cava from a family that has been farming its organic vineyards for more than 200 years. Headily fragrant muscat and gewürztraminer grapes are blended with parellada, then given a dosage of garnaxa from their friend Fred Torres’ project in Priorat. Rich with tropical fruit and exotic scents including ginger and jasmine, it finishes bone-dry with a zap of pink grapefruit.
Available from:
The Sourcing Table (£24)
Contevedo Cava Brut
Best budget cava
Aldi’s perennially popular cava gives plenty of bubbly bang for your buck. Bright and creamy with notes of green apples and orange blossom finishing with a crisp, dry tang. Brilliant value and great for a party – add a dash of crème de cassis or elderflower cordial for extra pizazz.
Available from:
Aldi (£5.79)
Codorniu Seleccion Familia Reserva Organic Cava
Best supermarket cava
From the reliable Codorniu brand, this is great quality for the price, a blend of chardonnay with macabeo and xarel-lo grapes, aged for 18 months and delivering fine bubbles and a nice balance of crisp fruit and toasted almonds. A step above most supermarket cavas, drink it well chilled with tapas-style snacks, or use it to toast a special occasion.
Available from:
Waitrose Cellar (£12.99)
Pere Ventura Cava
Best champagne alternative
A rich, toasty fizz that’s spent 18 months on the lees and could pass for a decent champagne at twice the price.
Available from:
The Great Wine Co. (£12.95)
Vilarnau 0% Sparkling Rosé
Best non-alcoholic cava
A pretty organic rosé for those that want the fun of fizz without the hit of alcohol. Summer pudding fruitiness with pink grapefruit zest, it’s made for drinking on a hot sunny day.
Available from:
Amazon (£8)
How is cava made?
Most cava is made in the Penedès region, immediately to the west of Barcelona, whose dynamic wine-making scene has improved the range and quality hugely in the past few years. Large producers have really upped their games in making fantastic value cavas in different styles, while a growing number of boutique wineries are embracing low-intervention methods to make wines of character and distinction, often using traditional grape varieties and techniques from the region. The hot, dry climate suits organic and biodynamic viticulture, so it’s not surprising that those wines are common.
Unlike most proseccos, which get their bubbles from a secondary fermentation in large metal tanks, all cavas must undergo this process in the bottle, as is the way in Champagne. The longer they spend ageing in contact with the resulting sediment, called the lees, the fuller and richer the flavours will be when the lees are removed and the finished wine is ready for sale. Nine months on the lees is the legal minimum for cava but this can be as much as three years or more.
Some maverick makers are reviving the ancestrale method, when bubbles are the result of the wine being bottled before the first fermentation is complete, known as pet nats (pétillant-naturel).
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