In very cold regions, the arrival of winter used to stop the fermentation of the grape must before it was bottled. When spring came, the wine began fermenting again in the bottle, producing gas, and the bottles (which were not yet made of glass with a cork like the kind we are familiar with today) exploded. Nevertheless, some remained intact, and thanks to this a new type of wine was discovered—sparkling, extraordinary—but by pure chance. The ancestral method was the first to be conceived and forms the basis of the traditional method used to made exceptional champagne and cava today. Unlike the latter, in the ancestral method the wine is bottled before the first fermentation is finished, so that a second fermentation subsequently takes place in the bottle, thereby achieving the natural carbonation. It is a fresh, fun, astounding, sparkling wine. Undoubtedly, it was the result of chance—like all great inventions—along with the ingenuity of shrewd monks, ever ready to ascend to heaven for a good cause.