Prosecco…is a still or a sparkling wine?

Hi, how are you? Welcome back to the Enolike blog!

Few weeks ago  I went to the Valdobbiadene area (the heart of Prosecco making), I visited some amazing wineries, but I will tell you all about them in the next weeks; as i was walking through those vineyards I thought about a question some of my friends keep asking… “this Prosecco that is so famous at world wide level, to the point it overtook  Champagne in sales is a still or a sparkling wine?”

Well this is a very good question! Here below you can find the technical explanation

The vineyard 
In origine, prosecco is a still white wine produced from a grape named “Glera”; some wineries produced what they call “Prosecco tranquillo” (quiet Prosecco) which is an interesting still white wine that goes very well with starters.
The vineyard “Glera” has a medium size gold yellow grape, which matures in the first half of October. It is widespread mainly in the hilly areas in Veneto and in some areas in Friuli Venezia Giulia (2 regions located in the North East of Italy)

Making the Prosecco
So if Prosecco is a still white wine, how come that the world wild famous version has bubbles? Thanks to a making process called  “Metodo Charmat”  which consist in making the wine go though a second fermentation process with the addition of sugar and yeasts; This process takes place in big pressurized steel containers that are commonly called autoclaves.

Production velocity
The  “Charmat method” allows the still wine to get sparkling very quickly; in fact few months are enough in order to obtain an hight quality product. It is also because of this that Prosecco has become the market leader at world wide level.

Different types of Prosecco 
Not all Prosecco will give you the same sensations; it is very much in the hands of the oenologist has he/she decides the sugar and yeast amount to be added to the wine and the time the wine needs to spend in the autoclave; because of this we have several different types of Prosecco:

Sweet
Extra Dry
Dry (medium dry)
Brut (Dry)
Extra Brut
Dosaggio Zero (no added sugar)

Also Prosecco like the “Champagne method” sparkling wine (we will talk about this different methodology in the next weeks)  can be vintage;  another topic  we will be developing;  for the moment been all you need to know is that the word vintage means the grapes were harvest the same year.

Try!
Now that you know more about Prosecco, comes the fun part…. you need to taste! here are some selections I believe you will enjoy….

Prosecco Valdobbiadene Extra Dry DOCG – Bortoluz

Prosecco Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze DOCG – La Marca

Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG – Extra Dry – Millage

So, what do you think! Still or sparkling wine?

See you soon!
Ciao Ilde