BARCELONA - Spain’s 1.2 billion euro cava sector has had a turbulent few years with a grape-farmers’ strike, foreign buyouts of family firms and a sales hit from the Catalonia separatist crisis.Spain’s lockdown, one of Europe’s strictest, crushed the tourism trade and closed restaurants for around two months, meaning less thirst for the beloved, fizzy alcoholic drink mainly produced in the northeastern Catalonia region.
With harvest coming in mid-August, social distancing and hygiene measures such as masks should not limit grape-picking since there would be space and machinery, said Deas. It takes at least a year after picking for bottles to go on sale. And Italy’s production in May was back at 2019 levels thanks to “reasonable optimism for the future”, said Stefano Zanette, president of prosecco’s regulatory body.
Citing the pandemic’s impact and to avoid a price collapse, Cava’s Regulatory Board approved on Wednesday its largest production cut ever for the upcoming harvest - with 2,000 kg of grapes per hectare less than usual - to try to deal with an excess of grapes and juice amid lower demand.
Such an odd thought that speciality goods like this may be heavily affected to the point of non-existence because of this pandemic