5à7 Podcast, S2E25: “2020, It’s a Year to Forget” and Why Joan Cusiné of Parés Baltà Thinks you Should Drink Cava with your Christmas Tourtière

Parés Baltà is a family owned winery in the Penedès Wine Region of Spain whose origins go back to 1790. Joan Cusine and his brother Josep are part of the 3rd generation working in the winery, which uses biodynamic methods and produces some of the most affordable and popular cava available in Quebec. But this year, there'll be a lot fewer pops of his family's sparkling wine at holiday and New Years Eve parties. So Joan and I get candid about how you market bubbles when people aren't celebrating (while we taste a few bottles of his family's recent and vintage collections). 

The 5à7 Podcast is a series of happy hour conversations with cool people. They’re based around food, but guests go beyond chefs and restaurant owners to artists, entrepreneurs and other inspiring people you might have heard of. It takes a sneak peak into the homes and lives of interesting people and is based on conversations that revolve around food – with a nod to the Quebec happy hour, aka the 5à7. These are the stories that only seem to come out over a drink with a friend…or by Zoom during COVID-19.

Here’s everything we mentioned on the podcast (mostly in the order we mentioned them):

Méthode champenoise: https://www.winespectator.com/glossary/index/id/GL_m%C3%A9thode_champenoise

The Laurentians, Quebec: https://www.laurentides.com/en

Parés Baltà’s most popular cava in Quebec: Cava Brut https://www.saq.com/en/10896365

What we tasted:

Parés Baltà Blanc de Pacs Penedès 2019:

https://www.saq.com/en/14195275

Still white wine. Grape varieties: Parellada 47 %, Macabeo 31 %, Xarel-lo 22 %

Sugar content: 4.7 g/L

Made with the same grapes as the Cava Brut, but they’re harvest two weeks later, meaning the sugar content is higher because that sugar isn’t used in the second fermentation (because there is no second fermentation) and the grapes are sweeter from the later harvest.

$16.45 at the SAQ in Quebec 

Parés Baltà Blanca Cusiné Penedès 2012: https://www.saq.com/en/12591021

Spanish Cava sparkling white wine. Grape varieties: Xarel-lo 78 %, Pinot noir 12 %, Chardonnay 10 %

Available to restaurants only at the moment at the SAQ Restaurateur

Sugar content: <1.2 g/L

$36.25 at the SAQ

 

Soil types: Parés Baltà also has a 100% limestone soil and 100% Xarel-lo still white wine called the Calcari: https://www.saq.com/en/11377225

And there’s a red wine I haven’t tried yet called the Mas Elena: https://www.saq.com/en/10985763

About phylloxera in European wine making: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-54122-0

About when sugar is added in Champagne: Zero dosage or non-dosé means there's no sugar added after disgorgement, which is after the second fermentation. But there has to be sugar of some kind added for the second fermentation to occur, because that's part of the Méthode champegnoise. Legally, the wine has to contain no sugar after the first fermentation, which means you need sugar to kick start that second fermentation. There isn’t a great natural wine work-=around, which is why you’ll see natural sparkling wines more often as pet nats, which use the méthode ancestrale that allows the f