Prosecco
Italian sparkling wine made from Glera and refermented in a sealed tank rather than in the bottle. The method keeps the fruit forward and the price down, which is why prosecco tops a spritz well, does not taste like champagne, and is not trying to.
Quick Facts
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Light-bodied and refreshing with gentle fruit sweetness, crisp acidity, and lively bubbles. Clean finish without heaviness.
Recommended Brands
Budget Choice
A supermarket Prosecco DOC: fine in a spritz, where it is one of three things in the glass
Premium Choice
A Prosecco Superiore DOCG from Valdobbiadene: the tighter appellation, and worth it where the wine carries the drink
Storage & Handling
Store bottles upright in a cool, dark place. Refrigerate before use. Once opened, reseal with a sparkling wine stopper and refrigerate.
Shelf Life
Unopened: 1–2 years (best consumed young). Opened: 1–2 days refrigerated with stopper
Usage
Added last and poured gently down the side of a chilled glass, so the bubbles survive the build. It lengthens rather than flavours, and the sweetness word on the label matters more than the price does, because a sweeter bottle will unbalance a drink that was built around a dry one.
Glera, and a Village Called Prosecco
The grape used to be called prosecco as well, which was the problem. In 2009 the name was reassigned: the grape became Glera, and Prosecco became a protected place name tied to a defined area of north-east Italy, taking in a village called Prosecco near Trieste. The effect was to stop anyone outside the region growing the grape and selling the name with it. The tiers matter more here than most wine hierarchies do. Prosecco DOC covers a wide area of the Veneto and Friuli, Conegliano Valdobbiadene and Asolo carry DOCG status on steeper hillside sites, and Cartizze is a small named cru within Valdobbiadene.
Tank, Not Bottle
Champagne takes its second fermentation inside the bottle it is sold in, spending years on its spent yeast and picking up the bread and pastry notes that come with that. Prosecco ferments a second time in a sealed pressurised tank and is bottled under pressure, by a method named after Martinotti and Charmat, and the whole business takes weeks rather than years. The result is a deliberate choice rather than a compromise. Tank fermentation keeps the pear, apple and white flower of the fresh grape intact, where the bottle method trades some of that away for depth, and it costs a fraction as much to carry out.
Extra Dry Is Sweeter Than Brut
The labelling is genuinely counterintuitive and it catches people out. The scale runs Brut Nature at 0 to 3 grams of sugar per litre, Extra Brut up to 6, Brut up to 12, Extra Dry from 12 to 17, and Dry from 17 to 32. Extra Dry therefore holds more sugar than Brut does, and Dry holds more again. A good deal of the prosecco sold in Britain is Extra Dry, which is pleasant enough on its own and will quietly sweeten a cocktail built on a Brut assumption. Read that word before the vintage or the price.
Using It in a Drink
Cold and last are the two rules. A warm bottle foams over the glass and loses its pressure to the pour, so chill it properly and add it once everything else is in place, tilting the glass and running the wine down the side. Brut is the safer choice in any drink carrying sweetness of its own, which covers most of them. An opened bottle holds its fizz for two or three days under a proper sparkling wine stopper and rather less under anything improvised, so a second round is a better use for the remainder than a plan to finish it next week.
Pro Tip
If it tastes good on its own, it’ll work in a cocktail. Prosecco shouldn’t need fixing.
Top Tips
- Read Brut or Extra Dry before anything else on the label. Extra Dry is the sweeter of the two, which is the wrong way round.
- Chill it hard and add it last. Warm prosecco foams away down the side of the glass and arrives flat.
- Use a proper sparkling stopper on an open bottle. Two or three days is realistic, and the teaspoon in the neck is folklore.
Possible Substitutions
- Cava (drier, more structured)
- Champagne (richer, more complex)
- Sparkling wine (style-dependent)
Production Method
Produced using the Charmat method, where secondary fermentation occurs in stainless steel tanks rather than bottles, preserving fresh fruit character.
History & Context
Prosecco gained global popularity in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as a lighter, more approachable alternative to Champagne. Its freshness and affordability made it a staple in modern cocktail culture.
Common Questions
Prosecco versus champagne?
Different methods before different places. Champagne referments in the bottle and spends years on its yeast, which builds the bread and pastry character. Prosecco referments in a sealed tank over weeks, which keeps the fresh pear and apple of the grape. Neither is a lesser version of the other.
Why is extra dry sweeter than brut?
Because the scale is historical rather than logical. Brut allows up to 12 grams of sugar per litre and Extra Dry runs from 12 to 17, so the word that sounds drier sits a band above it. Dry is sweeter again at 17 to 32.
Which cocktails use prosecco?
The spritz family is the obvious home, along with the Bellini, which is prosecco and white peach purée and nothing else. It also lengthens a French 75 in place of champagne. In each the wine is providing volume and lift rather than flavour of its own.
Does an open bottle keep?
Two or three days with a proper sparkling wine stopper, refrigerated, and noticeably less without one. The pressure is what is being kept rather than the wine, so a flat bottle is still drinkable and simply no longer useful for topping anything.