Massana Noya is in the heart of the Penedès, a beautiful land of sloping vines that joins the Mediterranean Sea to the hills that surround Barcelona. It’s easy to over-crop these vines and farm them... Read More

Massana Noya is in the heart of the Penedès, a beautiful land of sloping vines that joins the Mediterranean Sea to the hills that surround Barcelona. It’s easy to over-crop these vines and farm them cheaply with chemicals. Add some bubbles, and who will notice?

Massana Noya works hard for those of us who notice. The region is afflicted with beetles known locally as blaveta. They can eat the leaves from your vines, robbing the grapes of the energy they need to grow. Most farmers in the area kill them with chemicals. Massana Noya, instead, tempts them away from the vines with another source of nutrition: grass and other plants that grow naturally between the vines.

Similarly, wild boars roam the region. Build a fence? Get a shotgun? Noya’s approach, instead, is to just let nature happen, and they roam the estate freely. So what if they get to eat a few grapes, naturally reducing yields?

This kind of farming—all organic and biodynamic—reveals Cava’s great potential. Massana's work in the cellar helps too. They’ve been making wines in the Champagne style continuously, and in the same cellar, since 1905—around 50 years before they had electricity and 60 years before they even had a vehicle to bring their Cavas to the market in Barcelona. Not much has changed.