http://disqus.com/people/c2165a60b857f728a82e54ce426d7f89/enThu, 15 Jun 2006 04:27:12 -0000http://catavino.disqus.com/regional_profile_do_cava/#comment-2416954Grape varieties for Cava in the Penedès have long been a battlefield. Xarel.lo flowering sometimes fails, and that year's Cava blend can be very sour - a good argument for the better producers to start labelling by vintage, an initiative which the sector as a whole has resisted. The consequence is often too much added sweet liqueur at the bottling stage and an almighty hangover.<br>Codorniu has made efforts to raise quality by promising farmers a guaranteed price if they replant with Chardonnay. Compare Codorniu's majority-Chardonnay "Ana" brand with a ten-euro traditional M-X-P blend, and it's smoother, fruitier and less cardboardy. Codorniu's old enemy is the commercial giant Freixenet, who have a reputation for under-ageing their Cava for faster cash-flow (and avoiding the fines for so doing). Freixenet has attempted to block initiatives to use different grape varieties in Cava, prompting the Regulatory Council to dictate, for instance, Pinot Noir use only in rosé Cava: a nonsense except that it is Freixenet's competitors who want to forge ahead with experimenting. One unfortunate result is that UK buyers tutored in cheap Freixenet resist paying good money for decent Cava.John BarrassThu, 15 Jun 2006 04:27:12 -0000http://treehuggercomments.disqus.com/cleaning_up_their_act_anti_litter_campaigns_in_catalonia/#comment-17451065<p>Lola Galan, writing in El Pais newspaper, says that last year an estimated ten million cigarette butts were collected on Barcelona beaches. Littering is a pretty general problem across the Mediterranean - the Greeks even have a common phrase referring to the Great Outdoors as "the big ashtray"!</p>John BarrassWed, 17 Aug 2005 04:24:00 -0000