Spanish cava to see rise in consumption this Christmas

Cava, a sparkling wine made in Spain, will see a rise in consumption this Christmas thanks to the country's economic recovery, Spain's business newspaper Expansion reported on Wednesday.

In the first nine months of the year, sales of cava rose by 9 percent according to data released by the Cava Regulatory Board, which predicted that after Christmas and by the end of the year, when cava is most consumed, sales would have risen by more than 10 percent.

In Spain, it is traditional to toast with a glass of sparkling wine, either cava or the more widely known champagne on Christmas and New Year's Eve. That is why around 40 percent of cava sales are registered during the Christmas period.

"We expect 40 million cava bottles to be sold during the Christmas holidays," the chairman of the Cava Regulatory Board, Pedro Bonet said, highlighting that the figure indicated Spain's economic recovery.

Meanwhile, in the first nine months of the year, more than 158 million cava bottles were sold worldwide, which meant a 1.7-percent increase when compared with the same period of a year earlier.

About 95 percent of cava production is made in Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia, especially in the region of Penedes. However, it is also produced in other parts of Spain such as Extremadura, La Rioja, Aragon, Castile and Leon, the Basque region, Navarra and Valencia.

Cava from each area has its own specificity due to the weather and the type of grape grown, which results in different wines with different characters. Endit