In the case of Prosecco, that place in question is about as north-east as you can go, reaching across the regions of Veneto to Friuli Venezia Giulia near the Adriatic Sea, and rimmed to the north by the Dolomite Mountains and the eastern rim of the Alps. Most wines from this broad area are designated as DOC on the label, but there are also three other special designations within it that speak to an even higher guaranteed level of quality and site specificity.
The first two are Treviso and Trieste. If you see either of those places listed on the label of your DOC-level Prosecco, that means the grapes and production happened within those specific areas.
There is a third zone, however, that the Italian government gave an even more special designation: the Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG (denominazione di origine controllata e garantita). That G? That means, along with all the other assurances like specific region and grape, the government is guaranteeing the actual quality of what you’re about to drink. That’s pretty cool!
Another one of those DOC standards is the grape or grapes that can be used: Glera grapes, which, for a while, were also called Prosecco. (So if you thought Prosecco was the actual name of the grape, don’t feel bad.) All wines labelled as Prosecco must be made up of 85% of this Italian white grape variety, which is more often than not rife with beautiful orchard fruit notes. What’s the other 15%? About five or so other indigenous white varieties (if you really want to know: Glera Tonda, Glera Lunga, Glera Verdiso, Glera Perera and Glera Bianchetta Trevigiana), and, since the 1960s, four international grape varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Bianco and Pinot Nero (or Noir, as you may know it better).
There are three ways the DOC permits Prosecco producers to make their bubbly, but by and large what you buy from your favourite local wine shop or supermarket is in the spumante style, which is super bubbly (there’s also frizzante, with its more gentle bubbles, and a completely non-bubbly version, tranquilo).
THE DL ON THE DOCG
It’s worth taking a closer look at Conegliano Valdobbiadene, as it is a concentrated, unique little spot. I know – it’s super hard to say, so let’s begin with a little phonetic pronunciation lesson: cone-ell-yanno. Not so hard, right? Next up: val-doe-be-ah-den-ay. That one’s a little trickier. But if you practice a few times, it’ll start to roll around your tongue and out of your mouth like you’re a real Italian. And, you know, who doesn’t want to sound like a real Italian? I sure do.
Conegliano Valdobbiadene is a special place. It’s home to the birthplace of Prosecco wine, where the oldest vines dwell on dizzyingly steep south-facing slopes, and only the gentle human hand can carefully pick the fruit. Here, the vines are warmed by the sun and cooled by the breezes off the Adriatic Sea, and sit in diverse plots of land that make for beautifully nuanced sparkling wines. Grapes have likely been grown here for thousands of years, but it’s the late 20th century where things start getting really exciting for Prosecco.
In 1962, 11 local guys got together and said, you know, this place is pretty special! They formed the Consorzio di Tutela del Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene. By 1969, the Italian government came around to agreeing (things take time in Italy – long lunches and all) and recognized the area as part of its special DOC system of quality.
But all along, Prosecco had been slowly but surely becoming more popular, thanks in part to Guiseppe Cipriani. Cipriani opened the famed Harry’s Bar near the Piazza San Marco in Venice in 1931. It was here that he created a cocktail that not only outlasted his own life, but perhaps will still be poured long after the sea claims Venice for its own: the Bellini. The irresistible mix of fresh white peach purée and Prosecco was a hit with both aristocrats and American soldiers stationed in Italy. They brought the drink to the US and, by the late 1960s, Prosecco began to appear in America; it had already crossed borders into other parts of Europe. Demand increased, and thus did production.
Fast forward to the noughties, and Glera growing and Prosecco making had spread far beyond the Congeliano-Valdobbiadene (C-V) borders into two full-on regions, nine provinces and 556 villages. Prosecco, you see, is prolific. Grapes were being planted in the valleys, where they grew fast and loose and harvesting could be done with quick-grabbing machines, allowing more, more, more Prosecco to fill glasses the world over. The problem with that: it diluted the quality. How could you tell the difference between a hand-harvested complex Prosecco from the C-V hills and a fast and loose fandango, machine-harvested in the valley? About 90 million bottles a year come from the DOCG zone, which is about 30 kilometres at its widest with around 7,000 hectares planted. So, that’s about one case of Prosecco per year for every person living in Amsterdam or Hong Kong. Lucky them! But compare that to 420 million bottles coming out of the greater DOC area and about 20,000 hectares, and you start to get the picture. This is why in 2009 the government awarded C-V the special status of DOCG. When you pick up a bottle, this will be clearly stated on the label, along with the word ‘superiore’, just for that extra-special emphasis. And for what it’s worth, just outside of the western tip of Conegliano Valdobbiadene is a little (just shy of 200 hectares) spot called Asolo, which is another separate Prosecco DOCG adhering to the same parameters and standards of quality that C-V does. But within C-V, things actually get even more wine-geeky, so let’s break it down …
Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore
The oldest Prosecco producing spot, this DOCG was born (or, well, re-born) in 2009 to set its particularity apart from the rest of the Prosecco wines.
Rive
A super-special sub-zone designation, not unlike the villages of Burgundy. There are currently 43 in total. If you see this word along with Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore, it means the grapes come only from the rive named on the label. The other cool thing about that: it positions you a little deeper into the region, letting you know if the grapes in your juice are from the more dense soils of Conegliano, which tend to give you a little more richness in texture, or the shallow, rocky soils of Valdobbiadene, rife with marine-deposits. Wines from here tend to have more prominent floral and minerally notes and, call me crazy, but a little bit of that seaside salinity, too.
Cartizze
Let’s just call this Prosecco Oz. It’s a single little 107-hectare area within Valdobbiadene in the western reaches of the DOCG.
SWEET (AND NOT-SO-SWEET) SENSATIONS
As you learned above, all Prosecco is not created equal. So it’s kind of funny how it got a rep for being sweet. Some are, sure, but certainly not all. How can you know? That’s easy. Regardless of where your Prosecco came from within the region (or the region within the region within the region!), every bottle has a wonderful, simple clue. If your bottle says:
Extra Brut
This designation is pretty new (made official as of 2017, although certainly wines had been made in the past at this level of dryness), and means there are between 0 and 6 grams of sugar in the final product. If you like your sparkly dry like a cracker, this for you.
Brut
This used to be the catch-all for extra brut, too, but now means you’re at a dry 6–12 grams of sugar. Nice and dry.
Extra Dry
At 12–17 grams of sugar, this might seem a little confusing. Shouldn’t ‘extra dry’ mean… extra dry? Maybe, but it doesn’t – it means the Prosecco in question has a nice easy-going bit of sweetness to it, but isn’t cloying or over-the-top. When you’re working with cocktails in which you want to play up the fruity essence in the drink, this is where you want to go.
Dry
At 17–32 grams of sugar, this not-so-dry sparkling is in the dessert zone. And if you don’t have any simple syrup or bar sugar on hand, it can be great to play around with if you need just that little bit of extra sweetness to balance out other more savoury or sour notes.
You’ll notice in the recipes that I steer you towards one or another of these sweetness