Building The Home Bar: Prosecco

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Prosecco, often compared to champagne, is bubblier, crisper, and more affordable while upholding the same level of quality, plus it is great for a mimosa, or three. Prosecco is a sparkling wine that originates from the Valdobbiadene region in Veneto, Italy, and is traditionally made from Prosecco grapes, also called Glera. According to Wine Folly, Prosecco is most commonly produced in a dry, brut style, however, the wine deceptively seems sweeter due to the grape’s flavors of honeysuckle, pear, and honeydew. There are three distinct levels of sweetness that can be found in Prosecco: brut, extra dry, and dry or less than a gram, up to a gram, or more than one gram of sugar in any given glass. Prosecco, best served between 38 degrees F and 45 degrees F, bodes exceptionally well with a wide range of Asian foods like pad Thai and spicey curries, and the preliminary 2 parts Prosecco to one part orange juice.

An exciting shift occurred in the World of Prosecco back in 2009, changing the trajectory of this sparkling wine forever. The Italian government changed Prosecco’s growing region from Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) status to Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC), which affected nine provinces. Daily Seven Fifty also shares that the region went from a Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadine DOC zone to a Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG). This is a lot of foreign words and Italian wine law terms at once, but the implications are this; any wine called Prosecco must come from a certain area in Italy, like champagne, and an agricultural cap was instilled to improve the overall vintage quality of each bottle of Prosecco produced.

Britt and Per Karlsson from Forbes share an extraordinary increase in sparkling wine production around the world, about a 57% increase since 2002. This translates to about 2.5 billion tantalizing bottles of bubbly produced annually which is a staggering 8% of all wine produced worldwide, and Italy is spearheading the charge with their Prosecco. The top three leading sparkling wine-producing countries are Italy (660 million bottles), France (550 million bottles), and Germany (350 million bottles). Prosecco makes up 27% of all sparkling wines produced worldwide, and current statistics prove these numbers are far from capping out.

To understand how Prosecco took the podium in sparkling wine production, we should start at the beginning, in ancient Rome. Web Food Culture delicately explains how the origins of the word ‘prosecco’ is currently a hypothesis, according to which the ancestor of the wine could be ‘Pucino’ which was described in the “Naturalis Historia”, a famous treatise written by Pliny The Elder, a Roman Governor and author of the world’s first encyclopedia. It was not until 1593 that an English gentleman named Fynes Moryson wrote in his travel notes, “Histria is divided into Forum Julii, and Histria, properly so called (…). Here grows the wine Pucinum, now called Prosecho, much celebrated by Pliny”.

The names ‘Prosech’ and ‘Prosecho’ have been around for centuries, but it was not until the 19th century that Prosecco was made into the lively sparkling wine we know today. According to Daily Seven Fifty, three prominent figures are largely responsible for the creation of sparkling Prosecco; Federico Martinotti and Eugene Charmat who developed the secondary-fermentation tank method, and Antonio Carpenè Sr., a chemist who solidified industry standards for production and refined those methods. Carpenè is universally known as the ‘Father of Prosecco’ having opened The Oenology School of Conegliano in 1876, the very first school of viticulture and still the top winemaking institution in Italy. It is like France’s famous culinary school Le Cordon Bleu but for viticultural excellence.

The world’s best Prosecco is meticulously grown in the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG, a hilly region in Northeast Italy, just 30 miles from Venice, that covers 15 communes (a helpful geographical diagram can be found here). The grapes (at least 85% Glera) are harvested and pressed into a dense liquid called ‘must’ that is moved to steel tanks where yeasts are added to begin fermentation and transform the ‘must’ into wine. This ‘base wine’ is enriched with other base wines from different batches thus creating a ‘Cuvee.’ This Cuvee is then moved to ‘pressure tanks’ where a second fermentation begins (the addition of more yeasts and sugars) and the bubbles begin to produce through natural alcohol and CO2 formation. After 30 to 90 days, when the winemaker decides the sparkling wine is ready, it is bottled and labeled appropriately as Prosecco. A helpful diagram of the Charmat, or tank method, can be found here.

Adami Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG Vigneto Giardino 2020

The 2020 Vigneto Giardino Prosecco hits all the right spots when it comes to affordability, authenticity, and approachability. The winemakers coin this bubbler as a ‘fruit salad,’ offering sensations of incredibly fresh fruit that is complex and never repetitive, thanks to the single-vineyard Glera grapes grown in the south-facing ‘amphitheater-shaped’ vineyard. Tasting the wine is like digging into a bowl of summer’s finest fruit with crisp apple and lemon piercing through a flakey pie crust finished with roasted nuts and preserved apricots. This bottle can be found at Vivino for $25.

Col Vetoraz Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore di Cartizze 2021

Col Vetoraz winery, situated in the Valdobbiadene region, near the village of Santa Stefano, is named after a very high-quality individual location known for producing some of the greatest Glera Sparkling wine in Italy. This DOCG Prosecco is ‘bone-dry,’ meaning that there is almost no residual sugar at all, and made using the common tank method and 100% Glera grapes. This wine is most well-known for its complex and nuanced aromas of herb bouquets, citrus peel, apple skin, and limestone. The palate is equally as impressive with welcoming notes of pear and minerality that are married comfortably with Mediterranean fish dishes cooked with lots of fresh citrus and bright vegetables. The 2021 vintage can be found on the Astor Wines website for $42.

Lamborghini Gold Prosecco

This bottle of Prosecco is made in the Veneto region with 100% Glera grapes and is full to the cork of luxurious sparkling horsepower. Staying close to their roots in the sunny country of Italy, Lamborghini offers a Prosecco they claim has, “the perfect balance of strength, aromatic intensity, freshness and silkiness” that is soft, well-balanced, and velvety in texture. This bottle comes beautifully packaged in signature Lamborghini fashion while showcasing a flashy yet sophisticated gold bottle. This bottle can be found on the Wine by Lamborghini main website for $180.