The increasing consumption of traditional fossil energy has caused serious energy crisis and environmental pollution problems, prompting researchers to develop and utilize renewable alternative energy sources. Biomass has attracted wide attention because of its rich natural resources, low cost and clean features. Here, a novel Cu catalyst encapsulated in a metal-organic framework, Cu/MOF-808 was prepared by a simple, convenient and eficient solvothermal method. The Cu atoms were anchored to the defective sites of the secondary building units in the Zr-based MOF, MOF-808. Cu/MOF-808 catalyst could selectively convert the biomass derived platform chemical levulinic acid (LA) to γ-valerolactone ( γ-GVL) with high yield of 91.5% via catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) route with isopropyl alcohol (IPA) as hydrogen donor under mild reaction conditions (140 °C). The solvent effect indicated that Cu/MOF-808 catalyst exhibited the best activily and selectivity in isopropyl alcohol, which was much higher than that of methanol, ethanol and 2-butanol, due to the excellent hydrogen supply capacity of IPA. In addition, Cu/MOF-808 displayed good stability and reusability, which could still maintain a high selectivity to target product after five consecutive cycles. The mechanistic study demonstrated that the high synergistic effect of uniformly distributed Cu metal sites anchored by MOF and Zr Lewis acid sites in MOF contributed to the efficient conversion of levulinic acid.