The plenary session of the Regulatory Council of the Denomination of Origin (DO) Cava has approved by majority to limit production for the second consecutive year to support prices and “contribute to rebalancing the market.”
For the next harvest, it has been authorized to harvest 11,000 kilos of grapes per hectare throughout the Cava Region. This figure is 1,000 kilos more than in last year’s campaign, but it is still 1,000 kilos below the usual volume.
The president of the Regulatory Council, Javier Pagés, considers that “the conjunctural requirements necessary to restore the 12,000 kilos per hectare have not yet been met.” The objective of the measure, according to the president of the institution, is to advance in correcting the surplus situation of the sector caused by Covid-19 and by the surplus of hectares in plantation of the DO.
Thus, it has made a new appeal to the unity and responsibility of all the agents of the sector to achieve “self-regulation of the market”. The will is to lay the foundations for the recovery of the prices paid for the grapes. Pagés has wanted to make an express defense of the winegrowers, and is convinced that “decent prices for production” must be paid to ensure the sustainability of the sector.
In this sense, it has claimed that “the entire value chain of the Denomination of Origin, and all public powers, must act responsibly to guarantee its orderly and sustainable growth”.
Cava war
For years, the Cava Regulatory Council has been living an open war with the Junta de Extremadura, which claims the increase of crops for the DO Cava in its territory, and which has won several legal battles. The last one was in January, when the Supreme Court annulled the articles of Royal State Decree 536/2019, which limited the area of vineyard plantations for cava production.
The Government of Spain had established that they would take into account the proposals of the DO Cava Regulatory Council to approve the surface of new plantations within their scope of action, but the Supreme Court eliminated this point.
Then, the Junta de Extremadura announced that it would request the cancellation of the cultivation restrictions for Cava in the community made in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, and that it would request the concession to cultivate new hectares.
However, the Government – competent in supra-autonomous denominations of origin – maintains the prohibition of new cava grape plantations until 2022, according to the Official State Gazette (BOE) in March. The Extremadura administration has once again lodged an appeal.
With more than 70% of international sales, Cava is the Spanish DO that exports the most. It brings together more than 38,000 hectares of vineyards in seven autonomous communities and more than 6,800 winegrowers, and its 370 associated wineries are present in more than 100 countries.
