Part of the Effervescence Unleashed program is to highlight the various sparkling wine regions and methods used throughout the world. Prosecco is a popular but commonly misunderstood word. Is it a region, a wine, or a grape variety? Before 2009 this term described all three. Pretty confusing, right? Thus, in 2009 several changes were made. First, the Prosecco DOC was created which covers a vast area spanning two regions, nine provinces, and 556 townships. It is geographically located north of Venice in parts of Veneto and Friuli. At the same time the historical birthplaces of Prosecco, Conegliano Valdobbiadene and Colli Asolani were granted DOCG status. ConVal is a region of steep hillsides located between the villages of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene. The Colli Asolani is a hilly area of northern central Veneto where a neatly defined ridge passes from northeast to southwest between the towns of Cornuda and Asolo. Every DOCG wine is subject to official tasting procedures. To prevent counterfeiting, the bottles have a numbered government seal across the neck. And finally, the name of the primary grape variety used in making Prosecco wine was changed from Prosecco to Glera – the grape’s historical synonym.
The word Prosecco is most likely Slovenian in origin “derived from prosek, a dialectic term for ‘path cut through the woods'”. In Croatia a sweet passito wine called Prošek has been made for thousands of years – although the EU has now banned that usage. I guess it’s name is too similar to the subject of this post which was named after the village Prosecco located near Trieste. The first known mention of Prosecco occurred in 1593 when an English traveler named Fynes Moryson wrote “[In] Histria (Trieste) proper grows the wine Pucinum, now called Prosecho, much celebrated by Pliny”. Pucinum refers an ancient wine drunk by the Romans.
The modern history of Prosecco began in 1876 when enologist Giovanni Battista Cerletti founded the Scuola Enologico in Conegliano. However the wine’s popularity accelerated with improved production techniques for secondary fermentation starting with Federico Martinotti patenting a method using large pressurized temperature-controlled receptacles. And Eugène Charmat’s adoption of the autoclave in secondary fermentation soon followed. Post WWII this autoclave became “widely adopted throughout the area of Conegliano Valdobbiadene and the modern sparkling wine industry was born”. Over time this historical region lost focus as more producers outside the region began producing Prosecco sparkling wine. Thus the 2009 reforms.
Today the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG comprises 15 hillside towns with thousands of small growers supplying 183 wineries. The Dolomite Mountains protect the area on the north while the Piave River valley and a flat plain to the Adriatic Sea bring sea breezes and a semi-marine climate. The vines are planted on south facing sloops and receive abundant rain which drains quickly through the loose soil or dry from the maritime breezes.
Wine-searcher.com notes that “the Colli Asolani (the hilly area of northern central Veneto in which Asolo Prosecco is made) run in a neatly defined ridge from northeast to southwest between the towns of Cornuda and Asolo itself. Along this 8-kilometer (5-mile) spine, the hills undulate gently, their peaks rising to a maximum of about 450 meters (1500ft). The finest vineyard sites lie on the southern side of the hills, on sunny south-facing slopes, whose gentle gradient and loose soils offer excellent drainage. They are interspersed with orchards, vegetable crops and the wooded areas that reach up in finger-like valleys to the ridge summit.”.
There are three styles of wine made in the two DOCGs: Spumante (95% of production), Frizzante, and Tranquillo (Still). And there are three categories of residual sugar: Dry (17-32 grams of residual sugar), Extra-Dry (12-17 grams), and Brut (0-12 grams). A fourth category, Extra Brut, was just adopted and will incorporate wines from 0-6 grams.
Other requirements include that the grapes in a Prosecco wine must be at least 85% Glera with the remaining 15% from other authorized grape varieties. Secondary fermentation can be achieved via the autoclave method or in the bottle (“Rifermentato in Bottiglia”). And finally labeling. Superiore refers to only Spumante wines made within the two DOCGs. Millesimato indicates a wine made from a single vintage (85% minimum). And Rive indicates a Prosecco Superiore made entirely of grapes from one of the designated Rive (villages).
As part of our $12.99 Challenge for the Effervescence Unleashed campaign, we stumbled upon this Villa Antica Asolo Prosecco Superiore DOCG for $8.99. From what we’ve learned the Glera grapes were grown in north central Veneto in the Asolo DOCG and the extra-dry designation means that there is 12-17 grams residual sugar. It comes across off-dry with tight bubbles with some almond mixed with creamy lemons. A nice value for a DOCG Prosecco.
Pair with Will There By Wine, a novel written by Whitney Cubbison and featured during the BevFluence book series held at the Chicago Speakeasy.
