Prosecco - All About the Sparkling White Wine from Prosecco, Italy

This is a clip from our Prosecco episode that explains all about what it is and its typical characteristics. Here we go. So what is Prosecco? A place? A grape? A wine? Even if you're fluent in Italian, the answer takes a bit to comprehend. Is it a place? Well, yeah. Prosecco refers to a geographical area that includes nine provinces spread across two regions, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, in the northeast of Italy. It includes the little town of Prosecco from which the region got its name. This is the place where Prosecco originated and the only area by law where Prosecco can be made. The Prosecco region can produce up to 600 million bottles a year, which makes it the most popular sparkling wine in the world. That's about double what they produce in Champagne. But the highest quality Prosecco is made about 40 miles from Venice, located between the cities of Val d'Obiandene, say it with me kids, Val d'Obiandene and Coleriano. Is it a grape? It was up until 2009. It used to be that the grape that made Prosecco was called Prosecco. However, Italy got word that places like Slovenia and Australia were making wine from the same grape and calling it Prosecco as well. And that didn't sit too well. Italy wanted to protect Prosecco's reputation. So they took a page out of Champagne's book and made steps to protect Prosecco as a place instead of a grape and simultaneously changed the name of the grape to Glara. And yeah, of course, Prosecco is a wine. But is there something distinct about the wine making process that makes it Prosecco? I'm glad you asked. See, it's all about how the bubbles are made. Unlike Champagne, which uses the Champagne method, Prosecco uses something called the Charmant method to make its bubbles, which we're going to talk about later. To sum up, Prosecco is sparkling wine made in the Charmant method, made within the Prosecco region using the Glara grape. See, not quite as simple as you thought. Glara, it's the main grape of Prosecco. I say main grape because the law actually allows for 15% other grapes to be blended into Prosecco. But today we're just going to talk about Glara. There's evidence that Glara traces all the way back to the Romans, which makes it one of the oldest grapes still being made today. So you can do as the Romans do and drink as the Romans drank. Glara makes wines that are full of yellow apple and pears, white peach and apricots, honeydew, citrus and lots and lots of flowers. White flowers, elder flowers, honeysuckle and lily. It's fairly low in alcohol, light in body with high acidity, which keeps it crisp and refreshing. And while 90% of Prosecco you'll find will be sparkling or Spumante, it's sometimes made in a slightly fizzy style known as Frizzante and even still called Tranquillo. It's a semi aromatic grape variety, which means if it's harvested properly at low yields, it produces fragrant, floral and fruity wines. And if not, well, let's just say there's oceans of mediocre Prosecco on the market that a lot of Italians wouldn't wash their boots with.