Llopart Brut Reserva Corpinnat

About Llopart Brut Reserva Corpinnat

Llopart Organic Brut Reserva Corpinnat is bright & buoyant, with snappy acidity and a lively range of apple, biscuit, lemon peel, and ginger.

About Llopart

The Llopart family has been dedicated to viticulture since 1385 and to the production of cava since 1887. More than 125 years of experience support the quality of the organic family produced wines. La Heredad de Can Llopart de Subirats, located in Alt Penedés, Barcelona, is comprised of 235 acres of exclusively organic family-owned vineyards. Planted on unique geologic formations, the mountain vineyards are located in a privileged microclimate at between 360 m. and 510 m. above sea level.

About Corpinnat

A new category of sparkling wine—Corpinnat—is emerging in Spain, spearheaded by a number of small producers who’ve broken ties with the Cava DO. Created in 1972, the Cava DO produces some 250 million bottles of sparkling wine a year. The majority of that production is concentrated among three companies: Freixenet, Codorníu, and García Carrión.

Over the last decade, several attempts have been made by smaller Cava producers to distinguish themselves from larger-volume productions and to elevate the category. As a response to these calls for differentiation, in 2017 the Cava Regulatory Board created a new category for single-estate sparkling wines: Cava Paraje Calificado (CPC). The more rigorous selection process is focused on a vineyard designation, lower yield, and a longer aging period. This category, however, permits both large and small Cava producers to participate, and no requirements are placed over the entirety of a winery’s production—only on the wine to be qualified as CPC.

The Association of Wine Producers and Growers Corpinnat, formed in 2015 and ratified by the EU in late 2017, is a sparkling-wine association that takes into account the entire production of a producer rather than just individual wines. The name Corpinnat is formed by the combination of two Spanish words and means “heart of Penedès.”

Corpinnat producers must make wines from 100 percent organic, sustainable vineyards that have been harvested by hand. The wines must be made within the Corpinnat territory, entirely vinified on their winery premises, aged for a minimum of 18 months, and they must contain a minimum of 90 percent indigenous grapes. These regulations effectively rule out the largest Cava producers from participating in the association and labeling their wines Corpinnat.

There are nine Corpinnat producers to date: Gramona, Sabaté i Coca, Mas Candí, Ilopart, Torelló, Nadal, Can Feixes, Recaredo, and Julia Bernet. Each producer formally left the Cava DO last month, and they will now only bottle their wines as Corpinnat. “All of the Corpinnat companies are no longer part of the Cava DO, as the Regulatory Board considered both brands incompatible on the same label,” explains Ton Mata, the president of the Corpinnat association and the director of Recaredo. “For this reason, we decided to follow our own path and will no longer use the [labels] Cava, Paraje Calificado, or Gran Reserva.”