A Time to “Sparkle”
Last night was an evening to relax and enjoy a great meal with my favorite person at our favorite restaurant – Hawks. If you live in the Sacramento area and you haven’t tried Hawks, you should. I waited at the bar and had a glass of Prosecco. It is a perfect way to begin and refresh the palate.
Prosecco (officially called “Glera”) is an Italian grape varietal that is used to make a white sparkling wine. (By the way, the ancient Greeks called Italy “Oenotria,” which means the land of wine.) Many great wines come from Italy, and Prosecco is one of the most important wines from a region called The Veneto. It is also one of Italy’s most celebratory wines and the second leading sparkling wine in Italy after Asti. (Spumante means sparkling wine.) Italy has three major wine regions: Piedmont, Tuscany, and The Tre Venezie. The Veneto is one of the three regions that make up the Tre Venezie. The best grapes grow just north of Venice. Prosecco is dry or “off dry” (meaning it has some residual sugar to make it slightly sweet) with good acidity and a light, creamy flavor.
How do they get the bubbles in sparkling wine? For Prosecco, it is customarily done through a process of secondary fermentation known as Charmat. This is where the second fermentation takes place in pressurized tanks rather than in individual bottles like with Champagne. Real Champagne comes from the Champagne region, which is about 90 miles northeast of Paris. All other sparkling wines are just that — and not Champagne. The process for getting bubbles in Champagne is different. For Champagne, the secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle, where carbon dioxide is trapped and then becomes the bubbles after you open and pour the wine. At a later date, we will talk more about the process for Champagne. I may have given you too much technical data already in this post!
Ah yes, back to Prosecco! It’s a light, refreshing drink that is usually lighter in alcohol and perhaps has some sweetness. I pour it to begin many evening dinner parties; and it pairs well with many, many dishes. For parties, it is a light aperitif and could be the only bottle you pour. The glass I drank last night was called “Alice,” and I’ve included a picture of the bottle. I have also had La Farra, which is great, and Lamarca, which is readily available and does a nice job if you’re looking for a fun drink.
Cheers!