Gramona has achieved spectacular results in aging sparkling wines for extended periods and stands out as Spain's leading producer in this field. The winery celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2006, even though its first sparkling wine was not produced until the first quarter of the 20th century, under the direction of Bartomeu Gramona and Pilar Batlle.
The first bottles date from 1921. Gramona strengthened its brand in the 1940s; the fouth generation created the III Lustros and Celler Batllé labels, based on long aging periods, and the fifth generation, led by cousins Jaume (winemaking) and Xavier Gramona (1959-2023, management), strengthened their style and developed a wide range of still wines. Roc y Leo Gramona, members of the sixth generation, joined the company in 2018.
At the beginning of 2019 Gramona left DO Cava along with other sparkling wine producers from Penedès that are members of Corpinnat. The brand Corpinnat was presented in April 2018 as a new EU-registered, private certification that champions terroir in Penedès with stricter quality standards than those set by the DO Cava.
The company owns 70 hectares of vineyards, yet still buys grapes from local winegrowers. Despite their vines being organically grown, in 2014 Gramona started to apply biodynamic techniques in the plots destined to their top Cavas as well as a couple of their still wines. The shift came after Jaume Gramona attended a course conducted by Claude Bourguignon in Burgundy and asked the French microbiologist to consult for them and bring life back to their soils. They are now encouraging grape suppliers to follow their steps through Alliances for Earth, an association which provides advice on biodynamics and buys their grapes well above market prices. Gramona is also creating its own animal farm and expects to start ploughing with horses within three to four years.
Gramona has taken steps to promote sustainability ever since the construction of their new winery in 2001, built mostly underground as it seeks to benefit from naturally low temperatures and to reduce their environmental impact using renewable energies. As well as its own water treatment plant, Gramona reuses rainwater and has installed solar panels and geothermic energy for its cooling equipment. Latest advances include the replacement of traditional lighting by LED systems and the use of electric vehicles on the vineyards and winery.
Gramona's prestige rests on sparkling wines with an aging philosophy similar to Champagne's. Most of them thoroughly surpass 30 months of aging. The winery favours the use of cork stoppers for sparkling wines aged for three or more years as the most effective method to combat oxidation. Xarel.lo forms the backbone. It is one of the white grape varieties with higher resveratrol content, according to a study published by the University of Montpellier and mentioned by the family in all presentations.
Numerous vertical tastings carried out by the winery in the past years prove the good bottle evolution of long-aged sparkling wines. This led to the launch of Enoteca in December 2013, a new range including a Brut and a Brut Nature which have been in stacks for 160 months.
Their highest producing sparkling wine is Gramona Imperial (around €17 and 300,000 bottles). It is aged for three to four years and is a blend of Xarel.lo and Macabeo plus roughly 20% Chardonnay. The amount of Xarel.lo increases up to 70% in the longest aged sparkling wines. The blend in III Lustros (€26, 50,000 bottles, eight years in contact with the lees), Celler Batlle (€56, ten years in racks) and Enoteca aged for 14 years(€125 the Brut Nature version; €135 the Brut) is exactly the same in every new vintage. In fact it is the same wine, although it’s not always able to reach the latest stages of aging. The rest of the blend is usually Macabeo, but Jaume Gramona likes to have the flexibility to make changes based on harvest conditions. All the wines are marked by their creaminess and volume in the palate, two regular features in Gramona’s style.
Presented in a minimalist, elegant packaging, the Argent range includes a single-varietal Chardonnay aged for over 55 months and an extremely pale Pinot Noir rosé aged for over 42 months. Both of them cost around €29 in Spain.
