With an annual production of three million bottles, Juvé y Camps can pride itself on being the leader in the Gran Reserva cava category, which requires a minimum ageing period of 30 months.
Like many other family wineries in Penedès, the Juvés have a long wine-making tradition in the area, having grown vines since 1796. However, it was not until 1921 that Joan Juvé Baqués produced his first bottle of sparkling wine. In the years that followed, the family expanded the production facilities and introduced new technology. By the turn of the millennium, a modern winery was in place to produce still wines and base wines for cava from Espiells, their famous vineyard located 5 km northeast of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia. This quality-oriented period of business consolidation was driven by Joan Juvé Santacana.
The ageing cellars are located in Sant Sadurní, between the original building from the 1920s and a second one built in the 1960s. Given the company's production capacity, these six-storey facilities can house up to 12 million bottles at any one time.
In 2017, Scranton Enterprises BV, the Dutch holding company in which family members and executives of the multinational pharmaceutical corporation Grifols have a stake, invested in the Catalan bodega. Since then, they have maintained the same business strategy and the Juvé family, with fourth-generation Meritxell Juvé as CEO, remains at the helm.
Juvé & Camps owns more than 270 hectares of vineyards, most of them around Espiells (200 Ha on poor, well-drained, clay-limestone soils at an elevation of 180-240 metres), although some are strategically located in colder, continental areas of Penedès, such as Mediona (Parellada planted on stony soils at 500-700 metres elevation) or La Cuscona (17 Ha on limestone soils south of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia). Since 2015, all the vineyards have been certified organic, and in 2022 the company was recognised by the DO Cava as an 'elaborador integral', a new category that identifies producers who press and ferment 100% of their wines in their own facilities.
The family has made a name for itself with Cava Gran Reserva. The first sparkling wine in this category was Gran Juvé & Camps Brut (€35 in Spain), first released in 1972. It's a blend of local Penedès white varieties (Macabo, Xarel.lo, Parellada) and a little Chardonnay. However, the cuvée that emerged as the company's flagship is Reserva de la Familia (€19). This was the dry sparkling wine (brut nature) that the family used to drink privately at home. It has no Chardonnay in the blend and is aged for around 36 months. There is also an interesting, super-fresh magnum version that is aged even longer. To celebrate its centenary as a sparkling wine producer, a Pinot Noir based Reserva de la Familia rosé (€22.5) was released in 2022.
The top cuvées, also sold as Gran Reserva, are Finca La Capella (€85) and the rosé made from Pinot Noir La Siberia (€115). The grapes for La Capella come from a single plot in the Espiells vineyard, which has a distinctive shallow chalky soil. This is a limited production Cava (3,000 bottles) that was aged for over eight years and carries the Single Vineyard Cava de Paraje Calificado seal.
Launched in 2022, the new Milesimé range of single-vineyard Gran Reserva Cava consists of pre-existing wines that have been slightly updated to adapt to the new collection. These include Chardonnay Milésime, now assigned to the Can Rius vineyard (fine-textured sandy and silt soils), the old Xarel.lo Singular and the Blanc de Noirs. The Xarel.lo comes from L'Olivera, a plot with deep, sandy soils, and the Blanc de Noirs from Rieral, a vineyard with distinctive limestone and sandstone soils. All three are grown on the Espiells vineyard and the wines can be found in Spain for just under €30. They also display the new Cava quality labels, which indicate the area ('Comtats de Barcelona'), the sub-area ('Valls d'Anoia Foix') and the disgorgement date.
Finally, the entry-level wines, priced at €14, fall into the Brut Reserva category and include the single-varietal Essential Xarel.lo and Essential Púrpura, a blend of Xarel.lo, Macabeo and Parellada. Still, white and red wines are also produced at the Espiells winery. Since 2019, Juvé Camps has also been present in the Ribera del Duero with Pagos de Anguix.
In Penedès, visitors can enjoy the new wine bar, which is open all year round, and the terrace in Espiells, which is only in use during the summer. Wine tours allow visitors to choose between witnessing a manual disgorgement, enjoying an aperitif in the vineyards or tasting bottles during the ageing process.
