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Prosecco is the perfect wine accompaniment to prosciutto and melon |
Prosecco - high-class fizz from Italy’s hills
THE calendar reads summer.
But the dark clouds and continuous rain, often accompanied by stiff breezes, provoke memories of autumn. It is time to drown our sorrows and hope for sunnier days.
For most people, Pimms No1 is the traditional summer tipple, rosé a modern, trendy alternative. At the Wine Press our ideal summer snifter, is an upstart, much maligned, fizzy, Italian fermentation.
Prosecco is a grape that produces (mostly) sparkling wine, in the north-east of Italy. Abroad, some refer to it as a champagne alternative. But, despite the bubbles, it is a different kind of wine. Champagne is serious stuff. Production is laborious and – when done properly – extremely expensive. Champagne spends years fermenting in bottles which require regular turning.
Prosecco production is much simpler. Giant pressurised tanks quickly produce a secondary fermentation, creating wines that offer fresh tasting, simple enjoyment, ideal for summer sipping, with the added virtue of being easy on the pocket.
Best known as the base wine for the Bellini cocktail, Prosecco has had a bad press in the UK. Its reputation is equal to that of bottom-shelf Italian sparkler Asti Spumante or – even worse – the notorious white Lambrusco.
Conversely, in Germany and Italy, Prosecco is highly regarded, while US wine drinkers have also turned on to its effervescent charms. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times called it “the bubbly of the moment”.
Why this discrepancy in opinion? The answer is in the quality of the wine on offer. The Germans take Prosecco seriously and stock well-made examples. The huge Italian-American population in the US has worked closely with the best of Italy’s Prosecco producers to introduce and promote quality wines into the States. These cost a bit more but are far superior to most of the Prosecco on offer in London supermarkets.
Fortunately, London too has its Italians and they are keen to introduce us to good examples of this excellent, easy-drinking summertime fizz.
Most of the Prosecco retailing in London comes from the flat areas along the river Piave. The really good stuff is made from hand-picked grapes, grown on the slopes of the surrounding hills. The Italian wine authorities have deemed these hills a special wine area and awarded them Denominazione di Origine Controllata status. These words will be on the bottle and should guarantee a genuine wine from the best areas of the Prosecco-producing region.
Look out also for bottles with a notched cork, tied down with string and for the words Conegliano or Valdobbiadene (Val-do-be-ad-en-ay) – the two main wine towns in the area – on the label. Bottles labelled Prosecco Superiore di Cartizze, are the most expensive and contain wine made with grapes grown by small-scale farmers on the steepest slopes.
Lastly the taste. Forget Champagne-style yeasty, toasty, nuttiness; expect instead pale yellow wine with a moderate body, frothy and fresh-tasting, yielding a mouthful of fruity bubbles.
Properly made, the natural bitterness of the grape will be balanced by and, in turn, cancel out the residue sweetness.
It is ideal as an aperitif or with, melon, prosciutto or even simple pasta dishes.
Italian delis selling Prosecco wines:
Monte’s,
23 Canonbury Lane, N1
Tel: 020 7352 2335
Italian food and wine including several different Proseccos.
Salvino,
47 Brecknock Road, N7
Tel 020 7267 5305
Italian deli.Carluccio’s
32 Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead NW3.
Tel: 020 7794 2184
305-307 Upper Street, N1
Tel: 020 7359 8167
St John’s Wood High Street, NW8
Tel: 020 7449 0404 |
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