Casajou

Anyone looking for cava in the Penedès usually ends up in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia. If you keep driving along the river, you’ll eventually end up in Sant Jaume Sesoliveres—a village that looks as if it never decided to grow any larger. Limestone, clay, and sand are interwoven here like a mosaic, and the soil shapes the landscape.

Laia Esmel and Jaume Vilaseca grew up here. They spent years traveling the wine world, working for people who knew things they still wanted to learn. They returned not because of an idea, but because of a single vineyard: La Caldereta.

Planted in 1963 by the Poch family, south-facing on a clay slope, 1.5 hectares, near Sant Sadurní d'Anoia. For the region, this would be considered Grand Cru terrain. You only need to see the vineyard once to understand why. In 2020, they had the opportunity to take it over. And from day one, it was clear: it would be vinified entirely on its own. At that moment, what had started as a return home became a project.

During the day, everything is Mediterranean: hot and dry, just as expected. But then the nights come. Cool, humid air sweeps through the Anoia Valley, pools on the slopes, and brings the temperature back down before the next day begins. Ripe grapes that still retain their acidity are exactly what a good sparkling wine needs, and no one has to recreate that in the cellar. A gift, say Laia and Jaume, when asked about it. You can tell they really mean it.

That is the real difference from everything else typically produced in the region. Cava is usually harvested early out of concern for acidity. What is lost in the process is body. The resulting base wines are thin, and they must later be painstakingly rebuilt through dosage and extended aging on the lees. Casajou doesn’t need that. The grapes arrive at the cellar already ripe and with brilliant acidity. After twelve months in the barrel, the base wine is bottled. The second fermentation is not initiated with a sugar solution, but with sweet must from the new vintage. Méthode Traditionnelle, but without taking shortcuts and with a maximum focus on terroir.

The result is sparkling wines with texture rather than just a thin effervescence. Cool, mineral, salty, with a savory quality that comes from the soil, not the barrel. Wines you don’t just dismiss as an aperitif, but that stick around all evening. The kind of sparkling wine for which you’d otherwise automatically reach for Champagne. Except here, no one is paying extra for the name.