2017 Juve & Camps Reserva de la Familia Gran Reserva Cava 750 ml

In the rarefied world of Gran Reserva Cava, Juvé & Camps is king. 

Founded in 1796 and producing estate wines for the last 200 years, the family-owned Juvé & Camps has “a well deserved reputation as one of Spain’s finest Cava producers,” according to Wine Advocate. The family's wines have been poured at royal banquets in Madrid, inside the ornate halls of Spain’s Senate and Congress—and hopefully, at your dinner table.

Juvé & Camps is an undisputed leader in the Gran Reserva category, the weightiest and most complex of Spain’s sparkling wines, and pound for pound among the best bubbly values on the market. To merit the designation, the wine must be vintage-dated and aged a minimum of 30 months—compared to nine months of aging for regular Cava.

Following the same méthode champenoise script that defines the limestone beauties of the Côte des Blancs, this bottle is aged 36 months on the lees in a dark, damp cellar. During that three-year slumber, autolysis—the aging process in which enzymes break down dead yeast cells—slowly enriches this wine’s lime-zest acidity and green-apple tartness with a deep layer of biscuit-y, earthy complexity. Produced in brut nature style, with no dosage or sugars added after the second fermentation, the wine’s finish is memorable, bone-dry, and “clinging,” per Vinous, showing “fine delineation and minerally cut.” 

Unlike top-tier French bubbly, where the inclusion of a year on the label might push prices into the $100 range, this 2017-dated Juvé & Camps release isn’t even in that ballpark—or even playing the same sport. But in deliciousness, it’s very much in the game.