The new fizz on the block

Published on Tuesday 22 July 2008 20:53

Champagne used to be the toast of summer, but there's a strong contender bubbling up, finds Alice Wyllie

THE sun is blazing and there's not a cloud in the sky over George Street, as Edinburgh office workers take time out of their day to enjoy the sunshine. The patrons of bars and restaurants spill on to the pavements and contemplate a glass of something cold and fizzy.

At Centotre, a couple of customers are treating themselves to a refreshing glass of prosecco with fresh wild strawberries bobbing in the top. The light, sweet sparkling wine is so popular at this bright Italian brasserie that it no longer serves champagne. And they're not the only people who are waking up to the delights of this reasonably priced Italian fizz.

The popularity of prosecco has increased dramatically since the late 1960s, with production growing from five million bottles a year four decades ago to 150 million today, due mainly to demand for exports to Germany and the United States. Its Italian producers are now aiming to increase annual production to 250 million bottles, a figure that would begin to rival the world's favourite bubbly: champagne.

"Prosecco is definitely popular at the moment, mainly because it seems to be quite fashionable," says Andrew Donaldson, the manager at a branch of Nicolas wine shop in Edinburgh. "We're selling a lot of bottles and it's creeping up on cava."

Last year France produced a record 339 million bottles of champagne. However, 150 million of those were exported, compared to some 16 million bottles of prosecco. The key to increasing the popularity of this sparkling wine further – and giving Spanish cava a run for its money – appears to be boosting exports, particularly to emerging wine markets like China. (Exports of champagne to China grew by an impressive 30 per cent to 650,000 bottles last year, a ninefold increase in five years.)

Victor Contini, the owner of Centotre, is passionate about prosecco and confident his customers find it an appealing alternative to champagne. He serves it up for a wallet-friendly 19.95 a bottle and uses it in the summer months to make Bellinis with fresh Italian peaches.

"It's a lovely, light, everyday drink, so refreshing on a hot day like today," he says. "It's reasonably priced and so light that my customers will happily share a bottle between two over lunch. I buy around 600 bottles a month, but I've ordered double that for August.

"Prosecco is a very different animal from champagne and the two shouldn't really be compared," he points out. "There's a time and a place for champagne, but when I had it on the menu it didn't sell well. People were rarely willing to shell out a lot of money on a bottle of champagne. I decided to take it off the menu and no-one's asked for it since. "

Contrary to popular belief, prosecco isn't supposed to taste like champagne. Sweeter and lighter, it is generally produced using the less time-consuming Charmat method – where the wine is fermented in pressurised tanks, rather than in bottles – and is designed to be drunk young. Grown in the Veneto region of Italy, it's softer and easier to drink than champagne and, of course, it's cheaper.

A bottle of Moet & Chandon retails for around 30 euros in Italy. Prosecco, on the other hand, retails for as little as 1.5 euros a litre, if you fill your own bottles from a jug at a hole-in-the-wall shop in Venice. Cartizze, the highest quality of hand-picked prosecco, grown only on one hill in Italy, costs a credit-crunch-friendly 25 euros. With economies suffering around the globe, prosecco's affordability may be the key to achieving the Italian producers' target of 250 million bottles.

In the meantime, customers at Centotre are more than willing to help the cause with a round of cool prosecco Bellinis.