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EDITORIAL<br />
FRANÇOIS GILBERT - EDITORIAL DIRECTOR<br />
HOW CAVA IS BECOMING MORE RESILIENT<br />
The Spanish sparkling wine appellation has experienced<br />
incremental growth over the past few years,<br />
fuelled by its dynamic marketing strategies and competitive<br />
pricing, particularly in export markets. After two<br />
climate alerts in previous years, the 2023 harvest put a<br />
true damper on the industry’s enthusiasm as drought<br />
swept across the region and led volumes to plummet in<br />
some cases, potentially stifling growth in the future.<br />
This is a real issue for Cava because unlike Champagne,<br />
for example, it cannot use reserve wines from previous<br />
years to make up for the shortfall. Fortunately, not all<br />
vineyard sites were affected equally and some managed<br />
to avoid the downturn. Nevertheless, this mini crisis will<br />
have repercussions, including for prices which are likely<br />
to increase. It will probably also end sales promotions in<br />
a bid to recoup some of the volume losses by improving<br />
value gains.<br />
We travelled to a number of Cava producing regions –<br />
not just Catalonia but also Extremadura and Aragon – to<br />
sound out industry sentiment after this unprecedented,<br />
seismic event (see page 102). Producers are actually fairly<br />
confident and are focusing on their ability to innovate to<br />
overcome this setback. They are taking practical, common<br />
sense measures like implementing vineyard management<br />
techniques that promote water retention for instance –<br />
deep tillage and winter ground cover – in order to curb<br />
the worst effects of drought. Common sense and forward<br />
planning have, after all, always made good bedfellows.<br />
4 WINTER 2023 • GILBERT & GAILLARD - THE FRENCH EXPERTS ON WINE