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A32 FEATURE
Wednesday 19 december 2018
Prosecco's bubble shows no sign of bursting

By COLLEEN BARRY wider Veneto region and
Associated Press four in neighboring Friuli
ASOLO, Italy (AP) — Prosec- Venezia Giulia, right up to
co, the fruity sparkling wine the Slovenian border. That
made in the northeastern change, made in 2009,
hills of Italy is gaining in has helped producers bet-
global popularity — and ter control quality and fight
producers of Champagne, against counterfeiters.
for so long the dominant The most renowned of the
bubbly wine, are taking three consortiums, Coneg-
note. liano Valdobbiadene, is try-
Prosecco has become the ing to get the territory rec-
best-selling sparkling wine ognized by UNESCO as a
in the world by volume, world heritage site, a label
and experts say it is eroding that experience in other
the market share of Cham- regions shows boosts both
pagne, the French wine tourism and the value of
that is synonymous with the product. Champagne
celebration but also comes received its UNESCO status
with a heftier price tag. The in 2015.
Italian wine's production Prosecco makers are bet-
eclipsed Champagne's five In this image taken on Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, wine grower Adelino Pizzobon checks a bunch of ting future success on
years ago and is now 75 grapes in a Prosecco vineyard at the Case Paolin farm, in Volpago del Montello, Italy. higher quality, and higher-
percent higher at 544 mil- Associated Press priced vintages. The best
lion bottles. Valdobbiadene can cost
Champagne still claims the The Italian bubbly's success tion of Champagne's aver- producers) perhaps." up to 30 euros ($34).
revenues crown, cashing is attributed to its lower age 10.24 euros ($11.63), Prosecco's growing popu- Sebastiano Bonomo, ex-
in a record 4.9 billion euros price and its profile as an Prosecco can be pur- larity, and the proliferation port manager at the Giusti
($5.6 billion) last year on anytime libation, making it chased at a price that of sparkling wines in gener- Dal Col winery near Treviso,
307 million bottles, 2.8 billion popular in Great Britain, the makes it easier to buy as al fueled by younger drink- said he can imagine one
euros of that in exports. But United States and Germa- an after-work drink or for a ers, is forcing Champagne day high-end restaurants
Prosecco's bubble shows ny, markets where Cham- casual gathering, without makers to up their game. keeping a Prosecco list, like
no sign of bursting: exports pagne has long flourished. pomp and circumstance. "The quality of Champagne they do for Champagne,
this year are trending up 16 Jowin Lepper Carberry, The lower price is in part at the moment has never based on geographic de-
percent over last year's 804 a consultant for a medi- made possible by a simpler been higher because it has nominations and zones.
million-euro ($913 million) cal devices company in production method. It has to be. The danger is the "That is the plan we should
high. Adding insult to injury, Baltimore, Maryland, tried two processes of fermen- competition, so it has to be go for, being able to bring
sales are surging 40 percent Prosecco at the beach tation, both in large tanks, better," said Edwards. knowledge about our ter-
in Champagne's home four years ago, and liked it whereas Champagne's At the same time, the three ritory, just like the knowl-
country, France, according so much she started mak- second fermentation pe- consortiums that make edge off Champagne was
to one estimate. And those ing frozen smoothies with it riod is done while the wine Prosecco have taken some spread to the entire world,"
figures don't reflect the sea- for friends at her pool. She is bottled. That requires stor- hints from the Champagne Bonomo said.
sonal Christmas sales bump moved on to making cock- ing the Champagne bot- playbook. Asolo is the smallest of the
of 20 percent. tails for dinner parties and tles at an angle and turning They successfully lobbied to three consortia making
Michael Edwards, an ex- has used Prosecco instead them slightly every day by have Prosecco as a brand Prosecco, but it has ex-
pert who has been a wine of Champagne for the past hand to help the fermen- with protected status panded its vineyards by
judge for Decanter maga- four New Year's Eves. tation — expensive man- switched from the grape 86 percent from 2011 to
zine and wrote the book "My initial reason for trying ual labor when done over once known as Prosecco, 2017. That has given much
"The Finest Wines of Cham- it at the beach is because thousands of bottles. and now Glera, to a hilly needed economic stimulus
pagne," says consumers it was less expensive than Prosecco producers them- territory in northeastern It- to a region that suffered a
are increasingly interested Champagne. Now I use selves are taken aback aly. It is based around the blow with the failure of two
in sparkling wines. it because I prefer it to by their wine's success, city of Treviso and encom- regional banks that de-
"Prosecco capitalizes on Champagne," she said. and mindful not to squan- passes five provinces in the voured billions in savings.q
the desire to drink spar- With an average produc- der it. They are up against
kling wine, not necessarily tion cost of 3.70 euros not only imitators, but also
Champagne," he says. ($4.20) per bottle, a frac- other sparkling wines, like
Spain's Cava, which still
does not rival Prosecco in
terms of global sales, and
Germany's Sekt, which ex-
perts say has improved in
quality.
"As the old innkeepers used
to say, even the fountain
outside the bar is compe-
tition," said Armando Ser-
ena the head of the Asolo
Consortium of Prosecco
In this image taken on Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, wine grower makers. "But it is certainly In this image taken on Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, wine grower
Adelino Pizzobon inspects a Prosecco vineyard at the Case Adelino Pizzobon opens a container of Prosecco wine, at the
Paolin farm, in Volpago del Montello, Italy. not a phenomenon that Case Paolin farm, in Volpago del Montello, Italy.
Associated Press we expected. It is cause for Associated Press
reflection for (Champagne