The Origin Denomination 

The "Consell Regulador" of the Origin Denomination was founded in 1960. Viticulture began to have a big importance in the Penedès, some enterprises were begin stablished which elaborated and bottled their wines in their own properties, and they started to commercialyze them. It provoked the creation of the penedes Origin Denomination: this fundation wanted simply the acknowledgement to very concrete type of product, and also, offering to the consumer a guarrantee of a determinate zonal quality.

Nowadays the "Consell Regulador" contains in its register five thousand wine producers in its files, two hundred and eight cellars, six stores and seventy enterprises dedicated to ageing and explotation. This rates suppose a production every year between 1,5 milion and 2 milion hectolitres of wine.
The Origin Denomination secures some concrete varieties of grape, this tye of wine cannot be made with any variation. It must follow the protocols of elaboration, and with vineyards located in a voluntary way into the natural region.

All this rules have provoked the creation of a wine that consumer recognizes with the name of penedes, which tutelaries the "Consell Regulador" of the Origin Denomination, as a guarrantee of a determinate quality.

Internal Legislation

The Origin Denomination has white wines of between 10 and 13 degrees, rosé wines between 11 and 13 degrees, and red wines between 11 and 14. Other types will not be considered as penedes.
The "Consell Regulador" marks the production and the limits of pressing the cellars.
To supervise all this, it has developed a legal body and controls, effectued from the "Consell Regulador" itself.

One of the main objectives of the "Consell Regulador" is to bottle wine on the cellar in order to avoid external bottling. The rules about maturing and ageing say white wines must arrive to the consumer in its optium conditions begin matured at least six months.

Red wines must have more than 15 months, one of them in wood barrels and two in bottles. The "Gran Reserva" wines must be practically the double of the time.

The Origin Denomination wines are in the market 18 or 14 months later but producers can do it longer depending on the quality or type looked for.

Control Systems

The "Consell Regulador" has got three levels of control to assure the complishment of all rules and guarantee the quality of the product penedes: the vineyard, the wine in the cellar and in the market.

Nowadays the "Consell Regulador" has got a computerized file of viticultural properties in El penedes, ther owners and employees, the quantity of produced grape, the location of the properties, the cultivated surface and the year of vineyard plantation.

In September, when the grape harvest comes, it controls the grape production and its entrance into the cellars with some magnetics cards. They have a strict and punctual control of the production obtained.

The "Consell Regulador" knows how much wine has been obtained and its destiny, if it will be white , rosé or ageing wine, and from here the second control to assure that wine can be called penedes begins. At this moment the wine has got the Origin Denomination.

Every year the cellars ask for some wines to be qualified as penedes. The inspectors of the "Consell Regulador" take some wine samples and an expert comitee tastes it and decides if it can be named with the Origin Denomination. The wines are summited to chemical and aenological tests, too, to have more tecnical elements. 

From this moment, the enterprises with qualified wine must bottle it. Some of them sell it wholesale in El penedes, but the most finish their commercialization.

When the wine arrives to the market, the third control begins. The inspectors obtain some samples and take it again to the Degustation Comitee.

It is done to control the damages of wine in the bottling process. If it's detected, the "Consell Regulador" goes to the enterprise, localyzes the share of the bottle and tries to find the type of problem, and if it is necessary, removes the bottles from the market and analyzes again the qualification of Origin Denomination.

El penedes wines are recognized from the consumer with its Origin Denomination labels. The logotype is formed by the word "pENEDÈS", in some clear characters, and below, with these smaller characters: "DENOMINACIÓ D'ORIGEN".

Every producer create his labels, and includes it very prudly, for having been qualified with the pENEDÈS Denomination.