The cava sector prepares for a good harvest after the rains

Although a new bad harvest was expected, after three years of intense drought, the rains of recent months have served to give the vineyards a breather. The wineries of the Cava Designation of Origin, with Penedès as the main producing area, expect a harvest in 2024 that will begin to approach normality. The good weather, with a cool May and June and occasional rainfall, will allow for good quality grapes after they have been able to follow an adequate ripening process. The D.O. Cava, made up of almost 350 wineries, groups more than 38,000 hectares of vineyards and 6,200 winegrowers.

The first harvests in the cava sector will begin in early August, but the bulk will be concentrated in September, and there will also be those who will wait until the end of September and early October, depending on the characteristics of each vineyard and its varieties. The heat that has arrived strongly in recent weeks will affect the grapes, but, if it does not last long, the vines will resist, having recovered with the water they have been receiving. In fact, beyond obtaining a good product, the rains have also served to recover vines that the drought had left damaged, with some already at the limit of their survival capacity.

"Climate change is upon us. When you live it, it seems like every year is going to be like this, but we are not there yet," says the president of the D.O. Cava, Javier Pagés, who also highlights the resilience of cava, not only capable of overcoming the drought, but also the effects derived from the pandemic. "The winegrowers have done a good job to recover the vineyard," he remarks.

Since 2021, grape production for the cava sector had experienced a 30% drop due to lack of rain, a figure that rose to 37.8% if only the hectares in Catalonia were taken into account. However, as cava has long aging periods, the hardships of recent years had begun to translate into a smaller quantity of bottles, but sales continued to do well. In this sense, the wineries of the D.O. Cava reached a new record in 2023, with an aggregated turnover volume of 2.2 billion euros and a commercialization of 252 million bottles, 1% more ---in 2022, growth had been 4.58%---.

With an average waiting time of 2.5 years in the winery, the sector will take time to repeat the 2023 record, with recent years of drought having a direct impact on production volume. For the coming years, less supply is expected. This will imply a generalized price increase, but also a revaluation of the cava brand, a demand from a good part of the sector. "The future of cava lies in continuing to bet on quality," says Pagés. This trend, which will intensify in the coming years, has already begun to be noticed, with wineries better planning their inventories to avoid stockouts and prioritizing the most profitable customers. With 70% of international sales, last year a slowdown in international exports was noted, and now it is the Spanish market that is driving the cava sector.