The Winery L'Utòpic of Montsant of Catalogne

In November of 2021, Spain’s DO Penedès announced a massive overhaul of their bylaws with many changes aimed at re-orienting the region via a “10-year plan”. One of the key aspects was a new classification system for the estates of the region called, “Vi de Mas”, the first five of which have just been certified. While most wine regions looking to implement a system use the so-called “Burgundian Pyramid” as a structure, Penedès took a different approach that merged some of the Burgundian sy ...

The focus is upon a new series of back label additions which will be: Viticultor – Elaborador: viticulturist/winemaker aka vigneron Embotellador – Elaborador: bottler Comercialitzadora: commercial wine agent aka negociant Work on these changes began at their 15th anniversary back in 2016 and has been ongoing since. Despite this length of time, part of their introduction has clearly been spurned by the recent wine fraud case wherein hundreds of thousands of their (and other locals DO’s) bac ...

The 11 producers within the group saw total sales reach 2.3 million bottles for 2021 which erased the general 23% contraction in sales during 2020 and surpassed 2019’s 2.2 million bottles sold. What’s more, the per bottle price rose 2% from 2020 to an average of 17.35€. This is an important distinction in a country where sparkling wines are regularly found in supermarkets for 2€ a bottle or even less. The Corpinnat producers admit that this rise in price will unfortunately be offset ...