Has the bubble burst for the Italian fizz?
It became a huge hit in the late Noughties, but the Italian fizz may finally have lost its allure. William Sitwell investigates
Lovers of prosecco, hold on to your flutes. News is just in that UK sales of the pale fizzy stuff are slowing. Last year showed a mere 5 per cent increase on the previous 12 months. That might not sound too drastic, but it’s the smallest rise since 2011 and represents a noticeable downturn.
According to accountants UHY Hacker Young, “prosecco may have reached its ‘Burberry moment’, where the brand suffers from overexposure and loses its luxury/ aspirational image”. And so the question on everyone’s parched lips is: have we reached peak prosecco? Has the bubble really burst?
The explosion in popularity of this Italian sparkling wine among we Britons has been extraordinary. It was in the late Noughties that the froth of the proverbial bottle bubbled over. According to UK wine importer Nik Darlington, of Red Squirrel, the origins of the prosecco boom can be traced to the financial crash of 2008.
“Prosecco drinking really took off in the late Noughties,” says Darlington. “People – especially in the City – found themselves with less disposable cash, but still wanted to be able to celebrate with something fizzy.” Prosecco was the answer. News soon reached the wedding market and once couples realised that you could buy prosecco for at least half the price of champagne, UK drinkers – never wishing to pass up a nifty discount on booze – got glugging the Italian fizz.
Although, as Darlington points out, “prosecco is a totally different drink”. It is, in fact, a far cry from bottle-fermented champagne, with a secondary fermentation taking place in vast steel vats.
A centuries-old tradition, think hand-turned magnums of Krug and Dom Perignon, lovingly made in some of the most ancient chateaux in the small French region of Champagne… compared with the rather larger Italian regions of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene where you can find prosecco for sale in 330ml cans.
Yet, while its production may have been industrial, it was of course still Italian. And the British will always romanticise the food and wine of that nation. Indeed, when restaurateur Russell Norman opened the first of his Venetian-inspired restaurant chain Polpo in London, in 2009, the drink he served at the launch party was none other than prosecco.
To us assembled foodies, he gave glasses of the stuff in little tumblers. It felt novel. It tasted different, it was light and palatable. And fresh from his research travels from that part of Italy, and because we trusted and admired Russell and appreciated the bare brick walls, pared-back feel of the restaurant, it felt authentic.
And, of course, those of us who had holidayed in Italy knew a great trick with prosecco. Mixed with soda and Aperol, that Italian aperitif made of orange, rhubarb and some other mysterious sounding ingredients like gentian and cinchona – add a splash of soda, ice cubes and a slice of orange – it is a warm Mediterranean sunset in a glass. And so we stalked the supermarket wine departments and filled our trolleys with the ingredients for an Aperol Spritz.
So the prosecco bubble rose. Wedding and festival-goers loved it so much that little vans appeared, serving the stuff on tap. More varieties appeared on our supermarket shelves. The bottles got bigger and bigger. And then Aldi released its own raspberry-flavoured prosecco tea bags.
This dainty and tender drink had gone mass market. And where it had once tasted dainty and tender, it now sipped like a thin cliché. As the wine writer and presenter of Channel 5’s The Wine Show, Amelia Singer, notes: “Prosecco became overexposed, and overexposure can harm any brand. Sparkling wine has been traditionally associated with celebration, what you might call a highlight moment in your life. The problem with prosecco is that it has become ubiquitous and that makes it pedestrian and, in turn, a less special option when you want bubbles.”
Singer also explains that prosecco opened up a market to other drinks which, in turn, made it a victim of its own success. “The arrival of prosecco gave the UK access and the confidence to try other affordable fizz styles such as crémant – a French sparkling wine – bubbles from the New World and, of course, English sparkling wine,” she says. “As those drinks became popular and affordable, prosecco became the unfashionable poor relation.” Or as Darlington bluntly puts it: “We have imported so much prosecco that it has become a commodity. People don’t really care how it’s made, or who makes it and that means it’s very hard to sell premium types.”
Some might take issue with that, including Pierpaolo Petrassi, the head of wine buying at Waitrose. “Waitrose is still seeing good growth in prosecco,” he reports, “mainly at the expense of cava and New World sparkling wine.”
Yet the Italian makers of prosecco do seem to be victims of their own success. They – and the government – are furious at how some Italian immigrants have started to make prosecco in Australia.
Prosecco was originally a variety of grape, not a region. In 1999, a winemaker from Valdobbiadene planted prosecco grapes in Australia and registered them legally as an authorised Australian grape variety.
Then, in 2009, the authorities in Italy changed the name of the prosecco grape to Glera and created a region in Italy’s Veneto called Prosecco, to which the EU granted status as a protected designation of origin. However it was too late stop the Australians, who produce a premium prosecco much to the fury of the Italians, who have attempted legal challenges but, to date, failed.
But if the fizz has gone out of prosecco, the Italians can take comfort from their other, rather more famous invention, the pizza. It’s one of the world’s most ubiquitous foods, and shows no sign of going out of fashion – a Museum of Pizza is about to open in New York, while recent research shows that it accounts for a quarter of all meals eaten out in UK chain restaurants.
I’ll raise an Aperol Spritz to that.