Harvest season turns into immersive tourist experience in the world of cava

The AE Cava employers' association has launched the 11th edition of the Cava Harvest wine tourism activities program, which offers twenty proposals at different wineries in the region. 

For three weeks, a thousand places are offered for the activities such as grape stomping, yoga among vineyards, concerts, and wine pairings.

Most tickets are already sold out, but some remain available, underlining the success the project has seen year after year. 

Over the last weekend, September 5-6, the 16 wineries of the Verema del Cava welcomed the first wave of visitors to the activities coinciding with the harvest.

One of the most successful activities is the grape-stomping experience. The Canals i Munné winery in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia will welcome up to 250 participants in the coming days, an average of 50 people per session.

"Visiting a winery is very cool, but these days we want to offer an experience of the territory and of doing something different," explains Oriol Canals, oenologist and fourth generation at the head of Canals i Munné, to the Catalan News Agency (ACN).

He says that visitors are surprised when taste grapes straight from the vine, "because people in big cities are not used" to this. 

The participants of the first Sunday in September range from babies a few months old to people in their 80s, and they equipped themselves with straw hats and tongs to pick the grapes themselves.

Once the small harvest is done, they deposited the grapes in vats. Then, it was time to wash their feet before getting into the trampling.

Canals says that stomping the grapes offers an "unique" sensation that "you remember perfectly for the rest of your life, how you notice all your feet sugary and slimy in a special way."

Francisco, a participant from Granollers, said it was a "surprising" experience, both for the sensation and for the effort he had to do. "It's not exactly what I expected," he admitted. Nevertheless, he recommended it as "very beautiful."

Among the youngest was Maria, 14 years old and there alongside her parents and brother. This family from Mollet del Vallès is fond of nature getaways, and on another occasion, they went to harvest rice.

Maria says that she "loves" these kinds of initiatives because she adores "everything related to the countryside and the mountains."

After treading the grapes, the participants saw how the must was extracted manually and then shared a farmer's breakfast to taste various Penedès products.

The second half of the day continued with a walk through the vineyards and a wine tasting in the cellar.