Day 13- Cava Experience & Farewell - Our Last Day on Bark to Bottle


Our last day on the Bark to Bottle tour began with a visit to the Oller Cork Company that makes champagne corks.  This was like visiting a modern computer center versus one from the 80's.  Prior to this, all the cork factories were filled with workers.   They had expensive, modern machinery but it was still a very manual process.  This factory was running with tons of machinery and very few people.  These corks are different in that they are composite corks with two natural flat disks placed at one end.  The machinery then knows which end to stamp and the end with the natural cork is what is inserted into the bottles.


We then visited the family-owned Cavas Recaredo Winery and our tour guide was Ton Mata, one of the grandsons of the founder of this winery.  Their sparkling wine was reported in a review by New York Times as the best sparking wine in the world. With our limited experience, we agree!  Ton gave us an insiders tour (we were unable to take pictures).  The most fascinating was the demonstration of disgorging the sediments in the champagne before inserting the cork and sending the bottle to market.


After leaving Recaredo, we enjoyed our last lunch with the tour group in a beautiful restaurant.  We had the room to ourselves, were surrounded by wine bottles on shelves, and felt like we were eating in a winery.



We have loved this trip, loved our group of eight, loved our guides and loved sharing it with good friends.




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