El Penedes, one of Europe’s oldest wine areas, is located in the Catalonian provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona. The counties of Alto Penedes, Garraf and Bajo Penedes offer visitors an ideal environment for business meetings immersed in the culture of wine and cava.
El Penedes offers professionals with plans to launch a new product, organize conferences, hold a board meeting, or entertain a very special client, a unique environment.
The region’s chromatic landscape stretching inland from the coast harbours vineyards dotted with farmhouses, hamlets and ancient castles bearing witness to the fact that this was a frontier region for centuries, where different cultures have left their mark. From the plains to the mountains, from Romanesque to Modernist buildings, and from family-run wineries to extensive vineyards, the region’s wide variety of venues for business meetings and leisure activities make it both an original and exclusive destination.
Penedes’ wine route hinges on two main localities, Vilafranca del Penedes and Sant Sadurni d’Anoia, where there are a large number of wineries, producing chiefly wine and cava, whose facilities have been adapted to host all kinds of events, ranging from large banquets to high-powered meetings for small groups.
Sant Sadurni d’Anoia is home to Freixenet and Codorniu, two of Spain’s largest cava producers known the world over. As with other wineries, such as Caves Gramona, they have the ability to make any corporate event an unforgettable experience. In fact, visitors to the town should not miss the opportunity to visit the impressive Codorniu wineries, declared a historical-artistic heritage site. Both the wineries and the fortified mansion, residence of the family Raventos, were designed and built by architect Joseph Puig i Cadafalch, who with Gaudi was one of the most prominent representatives of the great Catalonian Modernist School of architecture.
In Pacs del Penedes, there are two family wineries, Caves Capita Vidal and Caves Pares Balta, with exclusive, limited production wines and cavas under the Penedes Designation of Origin, which together with Caves Marti Soler in Guardiola, and Vins Caves Avinyo in Avinyonet del Penedes, or the Joan Sarda Wineries in Castellvi de la Marca, offer an outstanding choice of unbeatable venues for holding unique events..
The post-meeting leisure activities offered by the wineries in the area include tours of vineyards and facilities to get to know the ins and outs of wine making, wine tasting, food and wine pairing, and even cooking courses and workshops that will delight gourmets among the guests.
At Penedés, visitors can also savour the region’s rich cuisine and its most outstanding wines in a large number of restaurants whose wine lists contain over a hundred Penedés D.O. wines. Among them, Sant Jordi ‘Ca La Katy’ and Cal Lluis 1887, both in Sant Marti Sarroca, Can Joan in Olesa de Bonesvalls, Cal Pere del Mases and Cal Pelegri in Subirats, Cal Ton and The Nit in Vilafranca del Penedes, and Cal Vinticinc Blay in Sant Sadurni d’Anoia are well worth a special mention.
Lastly, those who choose this Mediterranean region as a destination should find time to take a walk along the mountain paths that run through the region’s vineyards, discover its many expressions of Modernist art, and photograph its wonderful examples of Romanesque architecture such as the monastery complex at Sant Sebastia of Gorgs, the monuments of Olerdola, or the castles of Gelida and Castellet.
