Is
That a Prosecco in Your Hand
Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
Assuming you don’t read these words
when they are sitting at the bottom of you
parakeet cage, you are likely gearing up
right now for New Year’s revelry in
some form or fashion. And whether it’s
a quiet dinner with good friends or a chilly
night out to watch the Peach Drop in downtown
Atlanta at midnight, bubbly wine will almost
certainly cross your lips today or tomorrow.
The
big bubbly wine news this year is that for
the first time in a very long time, wines
from Champagne have seen—Mon Dieu!—
a sales dip. Reacting to The Great Recession,
wine drinkers have sought a replacement
for the iconic sparkling wines of this northern
French viticultural region. I could spend
the next 700 or so words explaining why
there is only one Champagne; the reasons
why it is more expensive; and that while
there are other sparkling wines, there are
no true replacements for capital “C”
Champagne. I’ll save that rant for
another day, however, and talk about one
of the main “replacements” for
Champagne—Prosecco.
Many
thirsty bubbly drinkers are pointing their
glasses to the wines from northeastern Italy’s
Veneto region, according to one trade publication.
“Cheers” reports that Prosecco
sales rose 20% in the first half of 2009,
following double digit growth over the past
four years. The sales tracking company Impact
Databank reports similar growth.
The
reasons for its popularity are simple. Prosecco
is an uncomplicated, pleasant wine that
is amazingly inexpensive.
But
since it is wine from Europe, complications
reign regarding how Prosecco is made, classified
and named. So I give you: “The Everything
You Ever Wanted to Know About Prosecco (And
Some Things You Don’t) Guidebook.”
Prosecco
is both a grape and a place. The grape is
used to make refreshing still wines, lightly
sparkling “frizzante” wines
and bodaciously bubbly “spumante”
wines. Prosecco grapes have called the region
around Venice home for more than 150 years.
Prosecco
the place refers to a 12,000-acre region
northeast of Venice called Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene.
If you are sparkling wine from Prosecco
di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, congratulations,
you have met a number of growing and winemaking
regulations and can put the letters D.O.C.G.
on your forehead. D.O.C.G. stands for Denomiazione
di Origine Controllata e Garantita and is
a big deal in Italian winemaking circles.
Only a small handful of regions, such as
Barolo, Chianti and Brunello, get to be
a D.O.C.G. and must face more stringent
government regulation and quality control
than other areas.
Maybe
you thought Prosecco couldn’t get
more complicated. Sorry, no such luck. We’re
talking European wines here. It’s
always more complicated than it needs to
be. Because prosecco is a grape, winemakers
from anywhere in Italy can fashion a sparkling
wine from it and label it “Prosecco,”
but dodge all the quality and regulatory
hurdles of Prosecco D.O.C.G.
About
8 million cases of non-D.O.C.G. Prosecco
were made last year, much of it with “U.S.A.”
stamped on the shipping crates. The 160
true Prosecco D.O.C.G. producers in Conegliano-Valdobbiadene
are not crazy about this situation, but
they’re not crying too loudly either
because they can barely keep up with demand.
Remember all that double-digit sales growth?
Whether
it from true “Prosecco” or not,
bubbly wines made from this grape generally
have a simple, refreshing, lemon-lime flavor
with a touch of toasted almond. Some have
a bit of honey-like sweetness. You’ll
see Proseccos with bulbous, Champagne-style
corks and metal cages or traditional corks
tied down with string and require a corkscrew.
The latter are usually the less-bubbly frizzante
style. You’ll also see a few bottles
with metal pop-top closures. Closure styles
are not an accurate barometer for wine quality.
Unlike
Champagne makers, winemakers from Prosecco,
the region, are permitted to use the charmat
method. Instead of creating the fizzy bubbles
in the bottle with sugar and a pinch of
yeast—which have to be removed prior
to putting a cork in the bottle—charmat
wines get their bubbles in a big tank with
a sugar and a handful of yeast. The CO2
producing yeasts are filtered out just prior
to bottling. Some Prosecco makers have adopted
the more expensive and labor-intensive Champagne
method to amp up their complexity quotient.
Recently,
I evaluated 23 prosecco-based sparkling
wines—some from Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene,
some not—in a blind tasting. All the
wines were between $10 and $25, with one
outlier at $35. There was even one pink
prosecco made with a touch of pinot noir.
Mostly the news is good. I found the majority
of wines to be the way prosecco oughta be:
fresh, citrusy and fun. Interestingly, my
four top picks did come from Prosecco the
region, which may say something about the
inherent quality of prosecco the grape’s
homeland.
So
whether it is with a glass of bubbly from
Prosecco, Champagne or one of the many sparkling
wine regions around the world, forget about
all the stupid regulations and raise a glass
in toast to a bright future full of hope
and good health.
Adriano Adami, Bosco
di Gica, Brut,
Prosecco di Valdobbiadene, Italy
• $18
• Two Thumbs Up
• Exotic aromas of kaffir lime with
a petroleum note. It offered up delicate,
smoky flavors of toasted almond, lime and
lemon custard.
Mionetto, Brut, Prosecco
di Valdobbiadene, Italy
• $13
• Two Thumbs Up
• Aromas of yeasty, raw dough and
almond cream. It has aggressive, bright
flavors of tangerine, grapefruit with a
touch of clove and fresh dough. Pretty complex
for 13 bucks.
Villa Sandi Prosecco
di Valdobbiadene, Italy
• $17
• Two Thumbs Up
• Aromas of citrus, especially lime,
with a faint dough quality. This is a smooth,
approachable wine with flavors of ripe citrus,
tangerine, lime, dried pineapple and lemon
zest.
Mionetto, Sergio,
Extra Dry, Prosecco, Italy
• $19
• Two Thumbs Way Up
• Beautiful, enticing aromas of lemon,
lime, white flowers, minerals with a touch
of dough. It has refined flavors of lemon,
lime, pineapple, dried apricot and toasted
walnut. Yum!
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