Everybody loves sparkling wines, most of all Champagne. For years, people only stepped out of the Champagne box to avoid spending Champagne prices. But Recaredo offers an even better excuse: deliciousness and distinctiveness.

Catalonia has made many great contributions to world culture (Gaudí, Dalí), but has any added as much to human happiness as Cava? If you've been to Barcelona's Cava bars, you have experienced this first hand. Everybody is smiling, everyone is joyful. While Prosecco may be perfect for a spritz on a piazza, Cava is a go-to for just having fun.

But Recaredo, and a handful of other producers, think that Cava can be much more than just fun. They love fun as much as anyone (and the wines are fun!), but they also want to make a world-class bubbly that doesn't have to hide its face in shame whenever a bottle of Champagne enters the room.

So they do everything right. They grow mostly just indigenous varieties; they aren't trying to imitate Champagne, but to rival it. They work organically and without dosage. They label all their wines with vintages. They riddle the bottles and disgorge them by hand. They release the bottles many years after the vintage.

Just how high is the quality, really? Consider the story of Neal Rosenthal, importer of exceptionally fine and classical wines, almost all of which come from France or Italy. One of the few exceptions—and the only wine he imports from Spain—is Recaredo. He told us once that he imports it not to make money but because he loves to drink the wine and his fridge at home is filled with bottles!

What importer Rosenthal Wine Merchant has to say about this wine...

Whereas “Miranius” and “Aloers” offer remarkably chiseled and linear takes on Xarel-lo, “Can Credo”—what locals call the Mata family’s home—plays in a different register. From a beautifully situated three-hectare parcel called “La Pedra Blanca” planted in 1992 at 200 meters altitude, “Can Credo” spends the first two days of its fermentation on its skins in old oak casks with twice-daily punch-downs, after which point it is pressed and returned to barrels to finish its fermentation and rest a few months on its lees. The wine is finished in stainless steel and held in bottle for a year before its release, like the “Aloers” above. Comparisons to Burgundy are frequently overutilized and misguided, but this wine offers a combination of profound limestone essence, ultra-subdued fruit character, and racy acidity whose only true analogue is Chablis (if only most Chablis were even close to this lively and expressive!). It swells on the palate, building toward a nearly overwhelming sense of mineral grip on the salivation-inducing finish, and the openness of texture engendered by the barrel fermentation does nothing to compromise the wine’s stunning sense of precision.