Prosecco just isn’t my tipple
DEAR Italy, I love almost everything about you – Maseratis, Andrea Pirlo, Fellini films, the Via Condotti, gorgonzola, Montalbano, shoes, opera, the list is endless – but I’m afraid I don’t like prosecco… And it’s not because dentists now say that drinking prosecco destroys your teeth and can lead to the “prosecco smile”. That’s when the tooth comes out of the gum giving you the look of an ageing 18th-century prostitute in a TV costume drama where everyone has pox scars and dirty fingernails.
Professor Damien Walmsley of the British Dental Association says: “Prosecco offers a triple whammy of carbonation, sweetness and alcohol which can put your teeth at risk, leading to sensitivity and enamel erosion.” It’s also a headache in a glass as far as I’m concerned. I just don’t like it. In fact I’ve never understood the appeal of fizzy drinks from Tizer to Taittinger Brut, from Coke to Cristal.
The Italians are jolly cross suspecting (highly unlikely though it seems) a Brexit-y conspiracy between British brewers and dentists to discredit their sparkling wine.
Yet sales have rocketed in the past few years and led Boris Johnson to say, regarding Brexit (aren’t you fed up to here with Brexit?), that Italy would not impose trade restrictions on us because it would be unwilling to “sell less prosecco”.
The popularity of fizz in various forms surely dates back to the loadsamoney days of the 1980s when City traders clinched every deal by snapping their red braces and ordering a bottle of Bolly. Before that, a single bottle of champagne was a rare sign of a serious celebration – a 21st birthday, a new baby, a job promotion. But in the Wolf Of Wall Street era it became a totem of conspicuous consumption, of success and bulldozing self-belief. Spray it around like a Formula One driver on the podium: see how rich I am.
But once “loadsamoney” gave way to “rather less money”, prosecco became a sort of recession-era substitute for champagne, a latterday Babycham, an alcopop in a flute. Because you can afford to buy it in bulk it is the natural choice for parties and weddings.
A “complimentary glass of prosecco” is meant to be the big come-on which makes us go, “Ooh how lovely”. It’s the “because I’m worth it” drink of choice for a million hen nights.
AUTHENTIC prosecco (so Google tells me) has to be produced in the Prosecco region of the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene area of north-eastern Italy. Prosecco purists turn up their noses at the stuff in wine bars which comes out of a tap.
But back to the prosecco smile. Italian dentists immediately defended prosecco’s role as a beneficial gargle and sniffily claim that any damage done to British teeth is down to “insufficient hygiene”.
It could mean war. But as prosecco exports to Britain have risen by 12 per cent in a year I don’t think Italian producers have anything to worry about.