Raventós i Blanc | Conca del Riu Anoia

Robert Frost said that “poet” is a gift word, meaning that you cannot give it to yourself. It must be earned, bestowed upon you. So too the word “pioneer.” And in Spanish wine making, the Raventós family of Catalonia, which has been making wine for 21 generations dating back to 1497, is widely recognized as a pioneer.

Starting in the 19^th Century, family was the first in Spain to make sparkling wine following the traditional méthode Champenoise — the historic way of crafting sparkling wine in Champagne, with secondary fermentation in the bottle. Today, using the classic trio of Cava grapes — Xarello, Macabeo, Parellada —Raventós i Blanc produces wines that have brightness, age-worthy structure and a lean and chiseled minerality rooted in the soil of the Anoia river basin.

So distinctive is the terroir of Conca del Riu Anoia, the small region where Raventós i Blanc resides, that the producer has petitioned the government to award the area its own designation of origin. It is the family’s dream, a contemporary manifestation of its pioneer spirit.

Pepe Raventós, who leads the operation, modestly plays down such lofty descriptions. He emphasizes passion, instinct and a sense of creative community with growers and others in the valley. “It’s very simple,” he said. “We don’t think of being pioneers; we think of trying to make the best wines we can. I don’t create anything. I am the messenger of nature.”

Spoken like a pioneer — and a poet too.

Learn more about Raventos i Blanc here.