Why it matters
The producer
Gramona makes sparkling wine in Penedès, Catalonia, and the label on every bottle now reads Corpinnat rather than Cava. That change, completed in 2019, was not a marketing decision. Gramona was among the producers who founded Corpinnat in 2017, a private denomination built on rules the DO Cava category would not adopt: 100% organic and sustainable farming, grapes picked by hand, and geographic restriction to the Penedès heartland. When the denomination launched, Gramona walked away from one of Spain's most commercially visible wine names and staked the estate's visibility on a seal few people had heard of.
Gramona built its reputation inside the Cava DO and then chose to leave it. The decision crystallised in 2017, when Gramona joined seven other Penedès producers to found Corpinnat, and became final in 2019, when the estate formally exited the DO Cava category.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Sant Sadurní d'Anoia sits in the Penedès basin, roughly forty kilometres southwest of Barcelona, at an elevation that moderates the coastal heat and allows the native Catalan grapes to ripen slowly. Penedès has long been Spain's primary sparkling wine zone, and for most of its modern history the Cava label covered everything from entry-level industrial fizz to serious extended-aged wines made in the same village. That single label created a problem for producers farming at a different standard: no label distinction, no price signal, no way for a buyer to separate 90-month lees-aged Xarel·lo from a bottle turned around in nine months.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The vineyards are farmed without synthetic inputs. Biodynamic preparations are made on the estate and applied to the soil and vines to support root health and microbial activity, which in turn affects fruit concentration and skin integrity at harvest. Hand harvesting under Corpinnat rules means whole clusters arrive at the press with minimal oxidation and skin damage, a practical quality difference from mechanical picking that affects the base wine from which the sparkling wines are made.
Wines to know
The range in view
III Lustros is a Corpinnat. The blend is 41% Xarel·lo, 39% Macabeo, and 20% Parellada, all from estate or supervised Penedès parcels. It spends more than 80 months on lees before hand disgorgement. The wine is brut, dry in style, and shows the depth of extended autolysis: baked orchard fruit, toasted hazelnut, pastry, and a long saline line that comes partly from the limestone and slate soils and partly from years of yeast contact.
Gessami is the house's still white wine, a blend of Muscat, Sauvignon Blanc, and Gewürztraminer. Fermentation is arrested by cold at approximately 6 g/L of residual sugar, which gives the wine a gentle off-dry weight. The aromatics are immediately expressive: jasmine, orange blossom, and rose petal at the front, with anise and chamomile tea underneath. Where the sparkling wines are aged and layered with yeast-derived complexity, Gessami is fresh, floral, and quick.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
III Lustros is the bottle. It is a traditional-method sparkling wine from 41% Xarel·lo, 39% Macabeo, and 20% Parellada, aged for more than 80 months on lees in the underground cellar and disgorged by hand. The wine is brut, dry, and carries the full depth of extended autolysis: baked apple, hazelnut, brioche, and a saline finish with real length. The mousse is fine and persistent, the acidity holds everything upright, and the texture is broader and creamier than almost any other sparkling wine at this price level. Start here to understand what slow ageing in Penedès slate and limestone can produce.