History

Freixenet is a Spanish, family owned company whose roots stretch back to 1861, and arose from a great love story.

In 1889, Dolores Sala Vivé, heiress to the Sala wine emporium, married Pedro Ferrer Bosch, a boy from the neighboring vineyard of La Freixeneda (meaning “ash-tree grove” in Catalan) in the wine region of Penedès, just south of Barcelona.

Dolores and Pedro went into business together, producing traditionally crafted, bottle-fermented sparkling wines and, in 1914, began selling their products with the Freixenet name as a nod to the nickname El Freixenet given to Pedro by the locals.

By the 1920s, the family's flagship sparkling wines were experiencing great success domestically and internationally. Business was booming until the start of Spain’s Civil War, during which time the family suffered the loss of both Pedro Ferrer and his oldest son. With great determination the widowed Dolores Sala Vivé took over Freixenet to provide for her four young children.

In the 1920’s, their son, José Ferrer took over the family business and by the 1980’s grew Freixenet into a world leading producer of sparkling wine. When José Ferrer took over the reins in the 1980’s, he not only grew the company to become the world leading producer of sparkling wines, he also changed the way the Spanish cava industry operated.

Looking to maximise quality, José focused obsessively on innovation and Freixenet was the first company in Spain to pneumatically press grapes, use refrigerated vats to control fermentation and develop an automated system to stack bottles. José also led the creation of one of the most important private wine yeast collections in the world, which is used during fermentation to give a unique personality to each Freixenet wine.

With José now semi-retired, today his son Pedro Ferrer leads the charge. Under his guidance, Freixenet continues to expand by purchasing wine estates in some of the world’s most prominent appellations.

As well as the original winery in Sant Sadurni, the Freixenet Group has winery operations throughout Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Sonoma Valley, California; Champagne and Bordeaux, France; and Coonawarra and Mildura in Australia. In 2018, Freixenet joined forces with Henkell & Co to become one of the leading sparkling wine companies in the world.

Whilst enjoying the growth and success of Freixenet world-wide, the now fifth generation Ferrer family continues to realise the vision their grandparents had for the brand all those years ago.