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Xavier Gramona, director of the eponymous Gramona winery **** and pioneer of Catalan sparkling wine, passed away a few days ago, reports the wine platform Wine-Searcher. It quotes his friend Ana Lidon: "Xavier had an unfortunate accident in the cellars at the end of July, the complications of which led to his death on 4 August."
Xavier Gramona Sande was born in 1959 in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia in the Penedès region of Catalonia and studied business administration in Barcelona and London before returning to his home country. In 2019, he was a driving force behind the founding of the Corpinnat association, which split off from the DO Cava. Ana Lidon describes the reason for this: "Xavier was the architect of a major paradigm shift: the sparkling wines of Penedès were once ridiculed and only considered suitable for consumption at a young age. Nevertheless, he managed to prove that the best wines can be aged on the lees for long periods of time. They gain complexity and elegance without losing freshness." The founding of the Corpinnat group brought about some changes in the quality regime for Catalan sparkling wines. However, Xavier Gramona always emphasised that he would continue to have productive discussions with the President of the Consejo Regulador of the DO Cava, Javier Pages.
The winery is now run by his son Leonard, his nephew Roc and the winemaker Jaume Gramona. In its tribute, Wine-Searcher describes Xavier Gramona as "one of Spain's most important winemakers."