Not so long ago all white sparkling wine was called champagne in Spanish as well as English, though the pronunciation was different. When Spain joined the EU the french took exception to the loose use of a word they considered their own. In french champagne is a place. A little place - the use of little c is intentional. But because the french threw a hissy Spanish bubbly producers were forced to come up with a new noun - cava. Don't be surprised by that. The french employ Brigades of Bureaucrats (they probably have a patent on those words too) to come up with words of their own so they might not have to import one. Reverse engineering language, if you will. It would be interesting to know what's lost in translation. After all, if we were to come up with something entirely new to signify "Bureaucrat" and remove the frenchyness of that concept, exactly what significance would be left?
Anyway, today we refer to all white sparkling wine made by the traditional method as cava even if it were to come from some small place in france (unlikely).
We toured bodegas again today and don't worry. There is plenty of cava left for you.
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