Little reason for cheer as drought forces Spain to ration Cava wine

Christmas may be round the corner, but cava makers have little to toast after a severe drought over the past three years wrought havoc on harvests.

Supplies of the bubbly wine which is made almost exclusively in Spain’s Catalonia region have run short, forcing bodegas to ration sales to their biggest markets abroad.

About 70% of the cava produced is sold abroad while the rest remains in the Spanish market.

Global sales of cava have fallen between January and September this year by 12.8% compared to the same period last year, according to an industry body. International sales dropped nearly 16%. 

Traditionally, Germany was the largest market for lovers of Spanish bubbles but the self-imposed rationing of supplies by cava producers led to a drop of 55% in sales this year.

Part of the reason for this nose-dive in sales to Germany was Freixenet, the biggest cava producer in the world, which greatly reduced its supplies because it simply did not have the stock to sell.

In Britain, where cava has been a popular drink for many years, sales dropped 15.44% this year, compared with in 2023. Italian Prosecco has become the fizzy drink of choice for many.

This meant that Belgium became the leader in international sales, followed by the United States, where Spanish bodegas sold 12 million bottles this year.  Russia, where the bubbly is popular, fell in the rankings of foreign markets, with a decrease of 20% in sales.

Amid this uncertainty in the cava world, the only countries where demand increased were Sweden, Japan and the Netherlands.

“It is clear that there is a scarcity of product available on the market at a moment when a quality fizzy wine like cava is well considered throughout the world,” Javier Pagés, the president of the Denomination of Origin of Cava Producers, which represents most bodegas, told journalists at a meeting earlier this month.  

However, for producers of cava – but perhaps not for drinkers – the scarcity of the drink has delivered some pluses.

Prices rose on average by 20% internationally and 10% in Spain, according to the cava producer’s organisation.

“Fortunately, the scarcity of the product does have positive sides.  As demand is higher than the available product, prices and margins trended upward, allowing value to be added throughout the chain (of production),” Pagés added. 

“At the same time, the prices paid for grapes in the final harvest were once again significantly higher but on the other, the vast majority of winegrowers once again had very low yields due to the drought.”   

Prayers for rain to avoid another drought

Cava growers are cautiously optimistic that 2025 may be wetter than the three previous years, when the drought was so severe than many villages in Catalonia resorted to praying for a few drops to fall.

The major companies called for Spanish authorities to help provide irrigation schemes and other projects to help counter future droughts.

Catalonia’s regional government recently announced plans to spend €2.3 billion by 2040 to try to solve its chronic water shortage problems.

Among the plans, is a new seawater desalinisation plant on the Costa Brava, at a cost of €200 million but it will also require financial help from the Spanish government.

Cava makers may have been hampered by a long-running drought, but they have also had to face increasing competition from their fiercest rivals, Champagne and Prosecco.

Sparkling wines have boomed in popularity in recent years, according to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), an industry group, while wine’s popularity is generally on the decline as drinkers have turned to beer and spirits.

Red wine sales have declined while white wine, driven by the popularity of Prosecco, have increased.

“White wine demand and supply at the global level have expanded since 2000. At the beginning of the century, white wine accounted on average for 46% of the world total, while in more recent years this share rose to 49%,” an OIV report for 2023 said.

 “One of the main driving forces behind this increase is the boom of sparkling wine. The main countries which contributed to the growth at the world level are Italy (driven by the global success of Prosecco), the USA, South Africa and Australia.”

In the cut-throat world of wine, some cava producers are dismissive of their Italian rival, Prosecco.

“Prosecco is just water and bubbles. Cava is a drink which takes years to produce, like champagne. It takes years to produce it. Prosecco is produced in months,” one cava maker who did not want to be named, told Euronews Culture.  

The cava industry provides work for 6,200 people and it is produced by 349 bodegas, which sell cava in 100 countries. 

Cava is not just a preserve of Catalonia; there are bodegas in other parts of Spain. But the drink is closely associated with the north-eastern region.

When Catalan separatists staged a failed independence bid in 2017, producers suffered from a hugely damaging boycott from other parts of the country.