Cava: responses to climate change and continuity of a successful product
Since my grandparents produced their first bottle of cava in 1914, we have experienced great changes, but our family business has always focused on answering two key questions: what are the demands of consumers? How can we develop a future business?
This approach is fully valid and allows us to export cava to more than 140 countries, to be leaders in many of these markets and to produce a varied offer of cavas meeting demands from all over the world according to taste, pocket and occasions of consumption.
Our essence is cava and we ourselves are indisputably linked to this product of differentiated quality. And it is precisely because of the fact that we are world leaders in Cava that we feel a firm commitment to continue working for the future of this sector and thus respond to the new challenges we face.
Challenges that we will have to solve out of responsibility towards the larger community represented by our employees, winegrowers and suppliers throughout the value chain. Together we represent values and create direct wealth in the territory, year after year, harvest after harvest. We must all work to preserve and continue to increase the popularity of cava. Because the growth of the sector is also that of the entire community linked to cava.
The recent extreme changes in weather conditions have resulted in a persistent and extreme drought in Catalonia and the Penedès with 50% of the rain compared to the averages of recent years, with harvest reductions of up to 40% and the inevitable decrease of the production of tens of millions of kilos of grapes and bottles, in addition to the impossibility of meeting market demands.
This trend in the reduction of harvests not only has direct effects this year, but will also have effects in the coming ones, giving way to what would be the progressive entry of other competing products and the consequent loss of presence of cava around the world.
If global demand remains but we cannot produce enough bottles to adequately meet it in the short term, the situation will be really complicated at all levels.
Climate change requires the ability to react and the urgent application of adaptation measures.
In fact, many Denominations of Origin (D.O.) are already working with the respective sectors in order to adapt to the new circumstances, continue to satisfy consumers and maintain activity throughout the value chain.
It is in this sense that it is also necessary that D.O. Cava should adopt measures immediately so that in a few years we won’t wonder if enough was done to combat the effects of the drought.
I sincerely hope that the ability to adapt and the spirit of consensus will inspire the entire Cava community. We will have to work by getting involved in the future of the sector by turning difficulties into opportunities, just as previous generations did who successfully overcame such complicated situations as the phylloxera plague and war, among many others.
The future of Cava is the future and growth of an entire industry with a diversity of products and qualities and with many jobs that depend on it.
Pere Ferrer (CoCEO and Vice President of Freixenet)
