PROSECCO IS A "DEMOCRATIC" SUCCESS, FROM "ENTRY LEVEL" TO "TOP QUALITY". THE SECRETS OF ITALIAN SPARKLING WINE SUCCESS AS TOLD BY BISOL AND CARPENÈ MALVOLTI. EVEN CHAMPAGNE MAKERS LIKE IT...

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The Prosecco phenomenon knows no hesitation and fears no crisis. It aims to soon exceed 200 million bottles produced. WineNews, trying to discover the secrets of its success, which goes well beyond the Italian borders, asked two of the top wineries that produce sparkling wines in the Veneto region (and not only): Gianluca Bisol, head of the famous Venetian brand and Antonio Motteran, General Manager of the historic Carpenè Malvolti.

Prosecco is not an unexpected feat nor is it a fleeting success. Decades of work and passion, typical of the territory, and the reorganization of the territory that has been in effect for two years, has placed the most famous Italian sparkling wine at the top on domestic and foreign markets. Gianluca Bisol agrees and says that “with the new DOC (which lowered the yield per hectare by 27%, from 250 to 180 tons) we are on the market with different styles and characteristics, all certified, putting an end to the period in which low quality products were put on the market because there were no controls”.
Today, Prosecco offers five different types of products, starting with “entry level” - easy drinkability, availability and never to be underestimated, price, i.e., Prosecco DOC, then climbing up the pyramid to Prosecco Treviso DOC, Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG, Prosecco Superiore DOCG Asolo, up to the top, Cartizze DOCG. “So the consumer has a choice of different types of Prosecco, perhaps starting with the simplest and gradually discovering the more complex type,” Bisol said. “Of course, for many producers planting new vineyards will be a problem because the price of grapes will be lower, but in the long run it will prove to be a great opportunity to be more competitive in sales, presenting the consumer with prices that will favor the worldwide expansion of Prosecco”.

Analyzing the trend on the markets, every company has its own points of reference, but England, Germany and the United States remain the top ones. Bisol said, “Prosecco has become an everyday product in England so much so that it is one of the items in the food basket used to calculate inflation”, while the data from Germany, the largest importer, is even more amazing, as the General Manager of Carpenè Malvolti pointed out, ”40 million bottles, of which 15% are Prosecco DOCG. Important news also comes from the new markets, especially in the East, like Japan and China”. The expansion of Prosecco seems to depend on foreign markets, whereas in Italy the threshold of saturation of domestic consumption is not far off as it is nearly two thirds of the total production (190 million bottles, of which 130 million Prosecco DOC and 60 million Prosecco DOCG). “Over the next decade, “according to Motteran, “it could reach 380 million bottles total. These volumes will inevitably move from the traditional Horeca sales channel to the off trade (large retail chains), which have begun to show a great interest in Prosecco”.

The present is solid and the future will be marked by great challenges, but there is no real secret to reveal, rather there is a series of factors that have contributed to the birth of its success. First of all, “Prosecco is not a status symbol, like Champagne: it does not symbolize a social level. It is instead a democratic product, a lifestyle symbol closely linked to the Italian way of life,” Bisol said. Italian style as a core value, but also as a lever to undermine any type of market, “because Italian food and wine are the best known and loved in the world,” Motteran reminds us, “and Prosecco has become one of the pioneers of Italian taste in the world, like Chianti or Amarone, also by virtue of its flexibility making it a unique wine: suitable to drink as an aperitif, with meals or after dinner”.

A sparkling wine, we add, that makes simplicity its specialty: medium alcohol content, fresh bouquet, availability in bars, restaurants, wine shops, supermarkets and an affordable price: are these the secrets that make a wine everyone likes?