“Cava, Where Are You Headed? The Legacy of Agustí Torelló Mata”: Five Takeaways
I have taken wine courses and exams almost every year since taking my first wine course, the Wine & Spirit Education (WSET) Level 1 course, in March 2018. This year, in 2024, instead of taking wine courses, I have decided to focus on advancing my wine education through reading books about wine with the goal of reading one book every two months.
The first book I completed in this “book club” series is “Cava, Where Are You Headed? The Legacy of Agustí Torelló Mata,” written by Joseph Forns Varias and given to me by Señor Agustí Torelló Mata himself when I visited in Celler Kripta in March 2023.
“A Unique, Different and Unclassifiable Cava”
Celler Kripta (recently rebranded itself from its original name, Caves Agustí Torelló Mata) is one of the most acclaimed Cava producers. Its flagship Cava, Kripta, is lauded for having won the most awards for a Cava, and it is considered the premier special occasion Cava in Spain.
Kripta is a blend of Macabeu, Xarel-lo and Parellada, three native Catalan varieties, produced with organic grapes and aged for an average of eight years. Bottled in a unique amphorae-shaped bottle that stands apart from all other wines, it is produced only in quality vintages deemed acceptable for Kripta.
I had not heard of Kripta until I tasted it for the first time at the Spain Food Wine event in New York City in 2022, but from the first sip, I knew immediately that it was something special. Of his ambition to create Kripta, Agustí Torelló states in his book, “I had to prove myself and the big challenge would be the creation of a unique, different and unclassifiable cava.”
Cava is one of my favorite styles of sparkling wine, and in March 2023, when I was visiting Barcelona for work, I made a day trip out to the town of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, the center of Cava production, to pay a visit to Caves Agustí Torelló Mata on the outskirts of the town.
A Kripta fountain!
The winery is a gorgeous celebration of the history of wine production, the success of Kripta and the modern innovations that this producer has embraced over the years. A fountain made of Kripta bottles stands in the center of the entrance, Kripta bottles hang from the trees in the courtyard, historical vinegrowing and winemaking tools are featured prominently throughout the winery and large modern steel tanks sit to the side, waiting for the next grapes of the harvest to come in.
Historical sparkling wine production tools in the courtyard
I had the incredible good fortune to be finishing my wine tour when Señor Agustí Torelló Mata himself walked through the tasting room, and I excitedly went up to him to greet him and tell him how much I love his Cavas. It was a true fan girl moment, and I was ecstatic when he brought over this book and wrote a personal message for me on the front page!
Agustí Torelló Mata signing my copy of his book
Señor Agustí Torelló Mata did not come from a winemaking background, but was born into a family of musicians and tailors, and everything he created in the Cava industry was a product of his capacity to dream big and put in the hard work to manifest those dreams. In his own words, he set out to make the “greatest sparkling wine in the world: the cava of the Gods.”
Partly an inspirational motivation book on the power of vision, ambition and intentional living and partly a historical narrative and critique of the Cava industry from the perspective of a producer who has been active in the Cava industry since he was 13 years old, this book is a valuable resource for lovers of all styles of wine.
Here are five major takeaways from the story of Agustí Torelló Mata:
#1 The Importance of Family to Caves Agustí Torelló Mata
Celler Kripta has been a family-owned winery since its inception. In his book, Agustí Torelló credits his uncle Josep Mata Capellades to introducing him to the winemaking world when he was only 13 years old. Agustí Torelló had left school to help his family financially and went to learn how to make Cava with his uncle at Cal Credo. His uncle Josep eventually went on to create his own sparkling wine company in 1924, Caves Recaredo, another highly renowned producer creating sparkling wines under the Corpinnat label.
Agustí Torelló Mata worked in several different capacities in the Cava industry, establishing his own analysis laboratory, working as an assessor for companies that wanted to make sparkling wines and also working at large companies, first Marquès de Monistrol and then later Segura Viudas.
Agustí Torelló Mata actually created Kripta first in 1978 when he did not have his own wine company, and it was not until 1993 that he first released wine under his own name, Caves Agustí Torelló Mata. The winery was initially run as a family business with his four children, Agustí, Lali, Gemma and Àlex. It pained Agustí Torelló to see Agustí and Lali eventually leave the family business, but he credits the strength of the two remaining members, Gemma and Àlex, for continuing the legacy of the family business.
“To set up a company is more or less this: to know how to make sacrifices sometimes; never to forget your acquired commitments; to be grateful and generous; and to fully enjoy the rewards that a job well done can provide you with.”
#2 The Outsized Influence of Freixenet and Codorniu in the Cava Industry
The enormous Freixenet sign is the first thing visitors see when they arrive at the train station in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia.
Throughout the book, Agustí Torelló recognizes many influential figures in the Cava industry. In particular, he pays special homage to the role of Codorniu and its leader, Manuel Raventós Domènech, in creating the first major sparkling winery in the region in 1890, which made Penedès the home base for Cava. Throughout his years in the industry, Agustí Torelló held strong ties to Codorniu, including one of its influential leaders, Josep Maria Raventós.
Agusti Torelló also recognized the role of Freixenet under the leadership of Josep Ferrer in spreading the message of Cava around the world. Over 100 years old, Freixenet currently produces over 100 million bottles of Cava, and at the time of the publication of the book in 2015, Freixenet owned 18 cellars among seven countries in three continents, including Gloria Ferrer, the namesake brand of Josep Ferrer’s wife and the first sparkling winery in Carneros, California.
Giving a nuanced, well-rounded and personal view of the industry, Agustí Torelló also laid out the bitter fight between the two Cava giants, Freixenet and Codorniu, which started in 1996. Dubbed the “Cava War,” each party made damaging public and legal accusations of the other of misdeeds, which ultimately ended in a truce in 2006 that ended up benefiting neither party, and certainly not the rest of the Cava industry.
Further, he acknowledged that the supremacy of Freixenet and the other large Cava producers that sell high volumes of Cava at low prices below $10 US Dollars creates a serious challenge to raising the profile of Cava as a high quality sparkling wine and hinders small family producers from producing and selling high quality Cavas at prices higher than what consumers are accustomed to seeing on the shelves. These are problems seen often in other wine regions in the world, and the book provides valuable insights into how small wine producers navigate these types of challenges.
“If any history of sparkling wines has honoured a product that has risen to the top of the glass, it will be Freixenet, a company that in 2014 celebrated its 100th anniversary in a time of plenty and as a global leader. Along the way it has overcome all its obstacles because it has been capable of dreaming and at the same time taking risks at the right moments, whilst also having enough common sense to make strategic decisions that have usually been correct. Fifty years go it was difficult to imagine that the Ferrer family could overtake Codorniu, the cradle and great reference in the sector over a whole century, or that it could outdo the main Champagne brands - the head of which is Möet & Chandon, but it has.”
#3 The Power of Marketing and Publicity in the Wine Business
My tour guide at Celler Kripta
Because Cava is so ubiquitous in our modern world, we often take for granted that Cava is actually a rather recent invention since approximately 1890. For context, the first Champagne house, Ruinart, was established in 1729.
Cava is made through the traditional method of sparkling wine production in which the bubbles are formed in a secondary fermentation process inside a bottle (as opposed to a tank or other vessel). The traditional method is also called “méthode champenoise” in reference to its dominant use in Champagne, France, and Agusti Torelló described how, initially, the Cava industry looked mostly to Champagne for guidance on how to establish itself as a sparkling wine industry in Catlonia. He himself learned French and took annual trips to Champagne with other members of the Cava industry to learn from their French counterparts.
Although he holds a high level of respect for Champagne, Agusti Torelló was always a believer in the unique qualities of Cava as a standalone Catalan wine. He is a firm believer in using native Penedès grapes only - a battle that he lost, as the French grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, became authorized and integrated into the Cava denomination rules. He also wrote about the importance of the adoption of the term “Cava,” rather than “champagne,” in forging the identity of Cava separate from Champagne.
Cava bottles ageing in the cellars
He described extensively the efforts of the industry members to forge the identity of Cava collectively through industry trade groups, such as the Catalan delegation of the Associatió Nacional d’Enòlegs (ANE), of which Agusti Torelló was the president for 12 years, and the Confraria del Cava, a nod to the French confréries, such as the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin in Bourgogne, France.
“It is certain, however, that this means that we have to work personally and with persuasive arguments both with the distributor and the final customer in order for them to be interested in our products. The objective is nothing more than that they know us well and that they trust us. This often forces us to pack our bags and take a plane so as to present ourselves to those who want to get to know our products or, even better, to invite them to visit. In this way we can show the passion with which we do things.”
Agusti Torelló Mata also had a keen understanding of the role of marketing to introduce Cava to consumers around the world. He explained how he and the Cava industry leaders worked together to create wine festivals and marketing promotions with well-known celebrities and sporting events to get the Cava name out into the public and to establish Cava as a core part of Catalan and Spanish culture. He always believed in the power of Cava as a world class wine that could compete with Champagne.
Recognizing the power of marketing and wine tourism at his own winery, Celler Kripta unveiled in 2015, on Agusti Torelló’s 80th birthday, a new modern tasting room.
“Even though the bulk of the people who we receive are Catalans from Barcelona as well as many other parts of our country, the fact is that every time we receive more and more people from all over the world. It fills me with satisfaction to be able to show our cavas to a family from Australia, a married couple from Japan or a French winemaker, to give just three examples. It makes me emotional to receive visitors into my home whilst knowing that they have travelled many kilometres in order to be here, and it almost makes me blush when they sometimes express how much they wanted to personally meet the founder of a cava which they consider to be very important within the sector.”
#4 The Challenges of the Industry in Establishing Cava as a Premium Sparkling Wine
A premium sparkling wine
In addition to highlighting the triumphs of Cava in becoming a major sparkling wine of the world, Agustí Torelló Mata was also not afraid to speak up about certain industry decisions that he felt held Cava back from making wider strides in the world of wine.
A staunch believer in the importance of terroir, he has always been critical of the geographical dispersion of the Cava DO into regions, such as Rioja and Valencia.
He was further dismayed over the fragmentation of the Cava industry when industry members broke off to form and join Classic Penedès and Corpinnat instead of working out issues within the Cava DO together. Although Celler Kripta has always exceeded the minimum requirements of the Cava DO, it has always stayed with the denomination instead of breaking off to join other organizations with more strict production requirements.
He was also critical of the low Cava prices that undercut Cava’s image as a premium sparkling wine product that could compete against Champagne. Agustí Torelló had a clear-eyed view of the impact of the Cava industry on all of the major industry players, including grape growers, and he was especially concerned about the difficulty of raising the quality of Cava in the international wine market when grape growers were receiving so little for their crops and therefore had little incentive and few additional resources to improve quality in the vineyards.
In the book, he questions the position of Cava relative to other sparkling wines on the international market. He examined the industry of Cava relative to the supremacy of Champagne in the luxury sparkling wine market and the growing popularity of Italian Prosecco, which has become a leading sparkling wine on the international market by volume.
As blunt as Agustí Torelló is with his criticisms of the Cava industry in his book, it is equally clear that he sustains a consummate optimism for the future of the industry and believes in the ability of the industry members to work together to solve their problems.
“It’s difficult for me to keep the faith because I have been burnt many times, but I love cava too much for me to throw in the towel. I think that we still have time to do away with egos, to sit down together at the same table, and to speak frankly about the problems that we have within the sector and to look for solutions all together - cava producers and growers, cooperatives and producers of the base wine. I also include the people who work in the cavas, because we are all in this together.”
#5 The Singular Figure of Agustí Torelló Mata
A fan girl moment
Although the book is primarily about the story of Cava, the indomitable spirit of Agustí Torelló is a looming presence throughout the book. It is evident throughout the book that Agustí Torelló is a deeply intentional individual whose vision for the industry and his own wines is limitless. Further, Agustí Torelló had the tenacity to carry out the daily hard work required to bring those visions to life, and he accepted nothing less than the best in quality.
Although he is an entirely self-made man, relationships are important to him. He has a sincere respect for the power of the collective, and throughout his book, he specifically named and gave credit to individuals who had contributed to the Cava industry and his own journey.
With the creation of Kripta and the consistently high quality Cavas of Celler Kripta, he has done more to safeguard Cava’s reputation as a high quality sparkling wine than almost any other figure in the industry.
After finishing the book, I suddenly found myself craving a glass of Cava.
“Sometimes I go down to the cava alone and I start to talk to the bottles that sleep lying down while they are transforming from wine into the magical liquid that fuels our dreams. Perhaps if someone saw me they would think that I’d gone mad, and perhaps it’s true to a point. To dedicate yourself as I have over practically my whole life to the understanding of the mysteries of this sparkling wine that was invented by Dom Pérignon and was made famous by the Champagne makers - our older brothers - could mean losing it a little bit.”
A true wine treasure
