If you have toasted with a glass of cava this Christmas you probably have not noticed it, but its quality depends, in part, on the persistence of the famous Azores anticyclone. This has been verified by a group of researchers from the University of Malaga, who have compared the oscillations of the North Atlantic with the quality of sparkling wines.
The NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) is the index that shows the difference in atmospheric pressure between the islands of the Azores (in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean) and Iceland. This value is positive when an anticyclone is installed in the Azores and negative if storms form. Whether it is positive or negative, this index influences the quality of the cava .
As Raimundo Real, one of the main researchers of the study, explains to the Sinc news agency, “ we found that the NAO was related to the quality of cava between the years 1970 and 2008 . The existence of positive values of the NAO in the months of March to August, when the grapes are formed and mature, diminished the capacity to obtain a superior quality in the cava ”.
In fact, by analyzing this value, the scientists have verified that the quality of the cava is better when the mean value of the NAO is negative, “because it makes the average temperature in the cava area decrease and its quality improves,” explains Real himself.
Thus, according to the data obtained in the model, the data for 2012 pointed to an 80% probability of obtaining a top quality cava , while that probability is around 45% for this year 2013.
This research from the University of Malaga has been published in the specialized journal International Journal of Biometeorology .
