The story behind the link Cave Felix Massana

I first meet Felix and tasted his wonderful wine five years ago. It was my on first trip to Barcelona, and I had enjoyed a morning taking the Fat Tire bike tour of the city (which is a story for an other post). Back at their office returning my bike I saw a brochure for a wine tasting trip to alt Penedes with a company called Spanish Trails. The office for Spanish Trails was on my way back to my Hostel so I thought I’d drop in and see them. Fortuitously it turned out they had a tour leaving in half an hour and there was room in the mini-bus.

With a couple of random American girls, Chuck the tour guide drove us out through the industrial suburbs of Barcelona and down the motorway towards Vila Franca. After thirty minutes of main roads through the valleys we kicked up into the mountains proper and started climbing thorough the vineyards till we passed through the village of Villa Franca. After climbing up dusty back roads behind the village through the vineyards we came to Cave Massana.

After a quick tour of the winery, with Chuck translating for Felix, we got down to the serious business of food and wine tasting. Tasting is not the best description as when we went down to the cellar dinning room the table was replete with food and wine.Now bare with me as this was five years ago and much wine was consumed so I may not remember everything, we had Jamon of course, Fuet which is a Catalan salami which is quit hard but very piggy and rich with unctuous fat, black pudding of the local Catalan variety (name escapes me), olives and tomato from the family vegetable patch (brilliant as you would expect and hope), pan con tomat with bread from the village baker and what stuck in my mind most of all the potato tortilla made by Felix’s mother. Now this Tortilla was made with all ingredients from his own farm, olive oil, potato and egg, man the quality just takes it too an other level. Rich multi-dimensional flavors from the olive oil and free-range eggs permeated the potato, the oil giving a nutty background with some astringency to cut through the richness of the eggs which were so rich and creamy it was like double cream had been used. It was the perfect foil to the rich meats and wine.

Now the wine. The alt Penedes is a Cava region home to Frexient one of the big wine corps and Torres have a large facility not far away as well and both produce good wine. But higher in the hills on the family small-holdings you get individual micro-climates and terrific Terroir. Felix is the third generation of his family to farm this land so he has the advantage of some great old growth vines to enhance his wine-making as well. back to the tasting Felix explained in Catalan (with Chuck translating again) how Cava is made in the same way as good sparkling wine is made the world over but they do use the local grape varieties which gives it it’s own individual character. I’m no sommelier so in describing the wine I’m not going to regal you with comparisons of aromas of Peaches picked on a Tuesday on a Tuscan hillside under the noon day sun, suffice to say Felix’s Cava is cracking drop with it’s own distinct personality. With un-equelled generosity we tasted a good glass of each of his two Cava’s polishing off the bottles in the process between the eight of us. Did I mention both went well with food? And with good food ohh heaven,I’m afraid you had to be there.

We had a treat in store next as Felix makes Rosado just for himself and his family, but he opened one of the last bottles for us. It was a fantastic wine and a great segue to his reds. He had an excellent red from the more trad Penedes grapes and also a great cab sav. By this point we had devoured all the food and the additional food they had brought out. To finish of we had good roast almonds and sweet wine. To this day it is still one of the best meals of my life.

Felix had not finished with us though, we struggled up stairs and he taught us how to disgorge yeast from a bottle of Cava, before letting us loose on our own bottle. Now it is quite tricky to learn and after having imbibed much wine even trickier but as we were taking this bottle away ourselves there was much friendly competition to see who could lose the least wine. Sadly we had to go after that, so after saying goodbye to Felix and his wife, we bundled back into the mini-bus tried yet replete and drove off into the sunset to Barcelona. On returning to Barcelona the group went out and there ensued much partying at a fine Flamenco establishment and other den’s of iniquity but that is a story not to be published.

So if you venture to Barcelona and have the time, it’s well worth venturing out the city to visit Felix.