But a tastier, higher-quality version of Prosecco exists, and that is the wine made in the Prosecco Superiore DOCG region, a much smaller area with stricter controls on how the wine is made, and a striking, definitive terroir and climate. Producers there have even started to make a Rosé version of it that is pretty fun. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Prosecco DOC wine from the wider area. The Prosecco DOC region in light and dark green with the two DOCG regions in yellow and brown. Sparkling wine made from the Glera grape in a massive swath of northern Italy stretching from just west of the cities of Vicenza and Padua across most of the Veneto and all of Friuli gets bottled as Prosecco DOC. What You Need to Know About Prosecco Superiore DOCG Needless to say, there was a lot of new stuff for me to explore on my recent trip, and a chance to get to know the region with more depth and intimacy. The Prosecco DOCG region has also spent a lot of time digging deep, so to speak, into its terroirs, and has identified 43 of its steepest, highest-quality, most historical vineyard production areas and codified them into named Rive that can be thought of as the region’s equivalent to Burgundy’s climats. These days, nearly everyone has extra brut versions of their wines (with less than 6 grams of sugar per liter) and many make a brut nature with less than three grams of sugar.Ī number of other things have changed in the region over the past 15 years, most notably the declaration of the wine region as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the region’s decision to make a total ban on the use of glyphosate in any of its vineyards (the first region in Europe to do so).
Most were focused on the extra dry versions of Prosecco, which can contain between 12 and 17 grams of sugar per liter. When I first visited, not many producers were making extra brut or brut nature versions of their wines. It has gotten drier, more refined, and more expressive. In fact, I’ve enjoyed watching the evolution of Prosecco Superiore over the last 15 years. But my impressions of the wines from that trip, as well as many subsequent tastings of Prosecco Superiore since are fairly clear. My previous visit was to attend a wedding, and while we did a little bit of wine tasting at the time, I was more focused on connecting with friends than diving deep into the wine. In early May, at the invitation of the Consorzio di Tutela Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG I returned to the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene region of Italy for the first time in more than 17 years.