Andrew Jefford
‘Prosecco never forbids or affronts; it is all aerial grace and charm’
As I write in an article that will appear in the next (July) issue of Decanter, I’m still learning about the world of wine. My most recent lesson unfolded in northeast Italy – and it gave me a shock. The landscape is stunning, like a miniature version of the Peruvian Andes. In place of bare, snow-shawled mountains, though, are a succession of high ridges and a chaos of hump-backed, wood-topped hills. Little houses and hamlets are grafted as improbably as Inca citadels into the hillsides, while vapoury fillets of mist drift languidly over the valley bottoms. Every scrap of land ungobbled by the greedy forests is vineyard; every row of vines sits on its own grassy terrace. The effect is super-fecund: if you could hear vegetative growth, the scene would be deafening. But it’s quiet, apart from the occasional errant moped, the odd barking dog. Spring growth roars on silently.
What’s for sure is that it all means work; colossal amounts of work. Historical work, to have created the landscape in the first place; contemporary work, to maintain it as a living vineyard zone. In recognition of all of that work, the area has won UNESCO World Heritage status, its nomination mentioning these ‘hogback’ hills (steep-sloped on both sides, in contrast to cuestas with their gentle dip slopes and steep scarp slopes) as well as the grassy terraces and their slender burden of vines. To bring a hectare of grapes to harvest can take 800 hours of work here, more than five times what’s required on the plain. And the grape variety, the wine? That was what shocked me. The variety is Glera; the wine Prosecco.
But I should really write ConeglianoValdobbiadene (7,971ha), or Rive (352ha), or Cartizze (108ha), each a successively smaller and more qualitative zone within the historic production heartland of the expansive Prosecco zone (25,743ha). The vast majority of Prosecco is indeed made on the plains, and needs no more than 150 hours of work per hectare. I was startled to learn that qualitative alternatives with this level of historical and agricultural intricacy and sheer topographical challenge actually existed. Can all the work it implies be properly remunerated? And is Glera really up to the task of expressing the nuances of heroic hillside viticulture?
To go some way towards answers, we need to understand the Italian genius for rendering simplicity exquisite. Anyone who has ever eaten out in Italia autentica, well away from the tourist trail, will understand this: a risotto flavoured with nothing but cheese, a beautiful piece of purple-sprouting broccoli served on its own with a little butter and salt, gloriously primitive bruschetta or flakes of truffle grated over fresh tagliatelle.
It’s the opposite of the overcomplicating French genius, and it explains the perennial allure of many seemingly artless Italian white and red wines. This is what the place does best; this is what the land wishes to grow; so this is what we do. Eccolo!
Stupidly, I’d always disdained Prosecco because most isn’t made by the traditional method, but in pressure tanks. I was looking for authenticity in the wrong place, forgetting that the genius of this wine lies precisely in its fugitive floral notes, its orchard fruit and its foamy finesse, all of which are well served by autoclaves – though there are also col fondo or sui lieviti brut nature (cloudy bottle-fermented and undisgorged) versions, if you want, and metodo classico (traditional method) alternatives, too.
Prosecco never forbids or affronts; it is all aerial grace, prettiness and charm. That’s the point. Everything is calculated to realise that destiny most memorably (and the best can indeed cost eight times as much as the simplest). That’s why Glera is planted in this crazy green landscape; that’s what the 800 hours of modestly remunerated, heartpounding, slope-scaling, sweat-drenched work is all about. That’s what the place does best: the oldest wine lesson of all. D