Today's 'cool' wine - prosecco - and a King Valley festival

"Prosecco wines are all about lightness, freshness and fruit, designed to be enjoyed at any occasion. Joy in a bottle." Wine Selectors

Every week we get a batch of junk mail - I like junk mail, in the same sort of way as I like supermarkets. In lots of ways they tell you more about what is going on in the world than the newspapers do. This particular piece of junk mail is a really a real estate marketing thing masquerading as a newspaper - The Weekly Review. It's not a local newspaper- in fact I guess it's more of a magazine than anything. Anyway this week it had an article promoting a festival. Actually the article called it the Dal Zotto Prosecco Festival, but if you go to the website you will see that it is actually La Dolce Vita - Wines of the King Valley. Dal Zotto is just one of the vineyards in the area which includes Brown Brothers of Milawa. Mind you Dal Zotto arguably produces the best prosecco of the region and is also arguably responsible for the growth of the prosecco wine type in the region. And the King Valley is definitely the place for Australian prosecco although these days the Adelaide Hills and the Yarra Valley are entering the fray.

Prosecco's natural home in Australia is the King Valley though because of the large Italian community. They used to grow tobacco, but because of the demise of the tobacco market (in Australia anyway) many of them turned to making wine - of the Italian kind. This is where you find all the Australian versions of Italian wines such as Nebbiolo, Trebbiano, etc. So much so that they can now put on their own festival - it sounds like our Yarra Valley Grape Grazing. it's on next weekend 18th and 19th November, so if you are looking for a weekend in the country consider it.

Prosecco is definitely enjoying its moment in the sun. I don't like to think how many bottles were consumed at the recent Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. In England apparently sales of Prosecco outdo sales of Champagne these days, in spite of the British dentists coming out and saying that it rotted your teeth because of the sugar and acid. But as one journalist commented - all wine contains sugar and acid so presumably they all have the potential to rot your teeth. It enraged the Italians though.

Prosecco is an ancient wine. Pliny talked about it. It is named after a village near Trieste in Italy and was made with the Giera grape, which was called Prosecco until very recently when the powers that be decreed that Prosecco was a geographical denomination, not a grape and that the grape should be called by its proper name - Giera. The wine is still called Prosecco though. If you called it giera nobody would know what you were talking about.

Since the 18th century it has been grown in the Veneto region around the beautiful little town of Treviso. Actually between Costigliano and Valdobbiadene. Many years ago we actually holidayed just down the road from Costigliano which I do not remember as an attractive place though the countryside was. I also don't remember lots of vineyards, but they must have been there. I do remember on our second holiday in Italy enjoying a prosecco in the main square in Trastavere and feeling that I was truly experiencing travel porn. It was wonderful. Here is the view from our table.

So what is the difference between prosecco and champagne? Apart from price and the fact that one is French and the other Italian that is. Prosecco is much cheaper on the whole. Some of it is reputation and maybe a touch of slobbery and French national pride of course. But it's mostly the method used to produce it - and the grapes used. Champagne as we know uses chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, prosecco uses the giera grape. But maybe even more importantly prosecco does not undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle - all that riddling and other complicated stuff that goes on for some time with champagne. Prosecco is fermented in steel tanks. The very first article that I came across today, from Wine Folly more or less tells you everything you would want to know about the differences with champagne, so I won't go on about it much here. Suffice to say that prosecco does not generally last for many years - it should be drunk young. It is lighter, perhaps a little sweeter, fruitier and fresher. Perfect for an Australian day at the races - or any Australian summer's day come to that.

It certainly is very fashionable, and we Australians are pretty good at jumping on the fashion bandwagon as far as wine is concerned. Argentina too apparently, but Romania is also entering the fray.

Another reason for its fashion credentials is the Bellini cocktail. Add peach purée to your prosecco and hey presto you have a Bellini cocktail - as served at great expense in Harry's Bar in the Piazza di San Marco in Venice. Not that I have tried that. I did try making it once, but was not that impressed. There is also a cocktail called the Spritz - two-thirds prosecco to one third Campari or aperol, which actually sounds a little bit more tempting.

And it comes in fizzy, slightly fizzy or still as well. Now you don't get still champagne do you? The bubbles, by the way are said to be lighter, frothy, spritzy and, on the downside, don't last as long.

Tastewise - more apples and pears than toast, almond and citrus as in champagne. Well that's what the folks at Wine Folly say anyway. I can never taste these things. The best champagne I have ever tasted had a faint taste of strawberries. But, yes, I do think prosecco is a bit sweeter, though not sweet. And I guess this is why the wine gurus mock it and treat it with some disdain.

But go sit in La Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastavere with a prosecco in hand and watch the tourists and the locals gather, pass through, play around and generally have a good time while the sun goes down and you might change your mind. Really you can't drink anything else there.

"Prosecco isn’t champagne, any more than chablis is soave or Bordeaux is chianti. At its best it has an icing-sugar fluffiness, a breezy pear-scented freshness, a soft-touch charm that is all its own – a charm that, at the right moment, can be irresistible wherever you are in the world." David Williams, The Guardian