What are the key characteristics of Prosecco rosé?

The short answer

Prosecco DOC Rosé is a pink, fully sparkling wine made mostly from Glera with 10 to 15% Pinot Noir. Expect fine bubbles, floral aromas, strawberry and raspberry fruit and a crisp finish. It ranges from bone dry to off-dry, and every bottle carries a vintage year.

Answered by Michael Goldstein · Founder, Bella Principessa
Updated on

The full answer

Prosecco DOC Rosé is a pink, fully sparkling wine made mostly from Glera with 10 to 15% Pinot Noir. Expect fine bubbles, floral aromas, strawberry and raspberry fruit and a crisp finish. It ranges from bone dry to off-dry, and every bottle carries a vintage year.

Pink tells you about the color. That’s all it tells you. Plenty of people still read it as a sugar reading, which is how a perfectly dry wine ends up being apologized for at brunch.

The profile at a glance

  • Color: pale salmon to bright pink, from the Pinot Noir.
  • Bubbles: fully sparkling (spumante), with a fine, lasting bead.
  • Aroma: floral, with red berries: strawberry, raspberry, sometimes white peach.
  • Palate: fresh and crisp, with light body and bright acidity.
  • Sweetness: Brut Nature, Extra Brut, Brut or Extra Dry, as named on the label.
  • Vintage: always. The label says “Millesimato” and the year.

Where the pink comes from

The rules are specific: 85 to 90% Glera, the grape of Prosecco, and 10 to 15% Pinot Noir (Pinot Nero in Italian) made as red wine. The Pinot Noir brings the color, a little more body and the red-berry notes. Glera brings the green apple, pear and white flowers people know from white Prosecco.

The shade varies from producer to producer. A deeper pink doesn’t mean a sweeter wine, and a paler one doesn’t mean a drier one.

What does Pinot Noir have to do with Prosecco?

Why the bubbles are finer

Like white Prosecco, the rosé gets its bubbles in a large pressure tank, the Martinotti (or Charmat) method. The rosé rules ask for more patience: the second fermentation must last at least 60 days. That longer time on the lees is meant to give a finer, more persistent bead and a softer texture.

How is Prosecco rosé made?

Why every bottle has a year

Prosecco DOC Rosé must be a vintage wine. At least 85% of the grapes come from the year on the label, and the wine can be sold from January 1 after that harvest. That makes it easy to pick the freshest bottle on the shelf: choose the most recent year. Prosecco rosé is made to be enjoyed young.

How dry is it?

Prosecco DOC Rosé comes in four sweetness levels, from driest to sweetest: Brut Nature, Extra Brut, Brut and Extra Dry. Yes, Extra Dry is the sweetest of the four. It’s the most confusing word in sparkling wine, and it catches people out every weekend.

Bella Principessa Prosecco DOC Rosé is Brut.

Is Prosecco Rosé sweet or dry?

Bella Principessa Prosecco DOC Rosé

Ours is Brut and 11% ABV, Glera with Pinot Noir from the Prosecco DOC area, made by a fourth-generation family winery in the Veneto. Wild strawberry, raspberry and white peach on the nose; crisp red berries and citrus on the palate; a clean, dry finish. It’s the pink we pour for people who say they don’t drink pink.

Meet Bella Principessa Prosecco DOC Rosé

How it compares

  • White Prosecco: same grape at heart, same tank method. The rosé adds Pinot Noir, color, red fruit, a longer second fermentation and a compulsory vintage. Prosecco vs Prosecco Rosé
  • Champagne rosé: made by second fermentation in each bottle, with more time on the lees, so it tastes more of toast and brioche. Prosecco rosé keeps the fruit up front, and it usually costs far less.
  • “Pink Prosecco” from before 2020: there wasn’t any, officially. Prosecco DOC Rosé was approved in 2020. Pink sparkling wine sold earlier under other names wasn’t Prosecco. Is Prosecco Rosé also called pink Prosecco?

How to taste it

Serve it at 43 to 46°F, in a white-wine glass or a tulip rather than a narrow flute, so there’s room for the aroma. Look at the color and the bubbles first. Then smell for flowers and berries. Then notice the finish: a good Brut rosé ends clean and dry, not sticky.

What to eat with it

Its red fruit and crisp acidity make it easy with food: smoked salmon, sushi, shrimp, charcuterie, goat cheese salads, strawberries, and anything on a brunch table.

Food pairings for Prosecco rosé

The long read, in the JournalPink Prosecco: how to choose a good Prosecco Rosé6 min read →

SourceProsecco DOC Consortium, approval of Prosecco DOC Rosé (2020).

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More in this topic

Prosecco Rosé

What is Prosecco rosé?

Prosecco DOC Rosé is an Italian sparkling rosé made from Glera and Pinot Nero. The red-wine component gives it its pink color; fermentation creates the bubbles. Pink may catch your eye, but check the sweetness term before falling in love with the bottle.

The two grapes, the bubbles and Millesimato
Is Prosecco Rosé sweet or dry?

Usually not. Prosecco Rosé can only be made in the four driest sweetness styles: Brut Nature, Extra Brut, Brut and Extra Dry. In stores you’ll mostly see Brut, which is dry, or Extra Dry, which is slightly sweeter. The pink color comes from Pinot Noir grapes, not from sugar.

The four styles, and how to pick a dry one
What’s the difference between Prosecco and Prosecco Rosé?

Prosecco Rosé is Prosecco with 10 to 15% Pinot Noir added, which gives it its pink color and a light red-berry flavor. By the rules it must be sparkling, carry a vintage year, and spend at least 60 days fermenting in the tank (white Prosecco needs 30). It’s never made in the sweetest styles.

The two side by side, and which to pour
Is “Prosecco Rosé” also referred to as “Pink Prosecco”?

Yes. Pink Prosecco is an informal name for Prosecco rosé. Look for the complete Prosecco DOC Rosé designation on the bottle: pink colour alone does not identify the wine or tell you its sweetness.

The nickname, the official name and sweetness
What Does Pinot Noir Have to Do with Prosecco?

Pinot Noir, called Pinot Nero in Italian, supplies the red-wine component in Prosecco DOC Rosé: 10–15%, alongside 85–90% Glera. It may also be used in white Prosecco DOC when vinified as white wine. The same grape can have two quite different roles.

Its role in rosé, and in white Prosecco
How is Prosecco rosé made?

Prosecco DOC Rosé combines 85–90% Glera with 10–15% Pinot Nero vinified as red wine. The blend undergoes a sparkling process in sealed tanks lasting at least 60 days. Its pink color and its bubbles come from different stages, not a splash of color at bottling.

How the color and the sparkle are made
What does DOC mean on rosé?

On an Italian rosé label, DOC means Denominazione di Origine Controllata: controlled designation of origin. It identifies a wine made under the rules of a named Italian appellation. DOC alone does not tell you that the rosé is Prosecco, sparkling or sweet. Read the complete wine name and style words beside it.

What DOC on rosé tells you, and what it doesn’t
Where is Prosecco rosé produced?

Prosecco DOC Rosé is an Italian wine whose defined grape-growing area spans nine provinces across Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia in northeastern Italy. It shares the Prosecco DOC geographical designation with white Prosecco DOC. Pink changes the blend, not the country on the map.

Where it’s made, and whether it’s ever DOCG
What is the first fermentation process for Prosecco rosé?

In Prosecco rosé’s first fermentation, yeast turns grape sugars into alcohol to make the base wines. Glera is vinified as white wine and Pinot Nero as red wine. They are then blended before the later tank fermentation that retains the bubbles. The pink and the sparkle have different beginnings.

The base wines, then the sparkling stage
What distinguishes Prosecco rosé from other sparkling wines?

Prosecco DOC Rosé is an Italian sparkling rosé with a defined Glera and Pinot Nero blend and its own production rules. Other sparkling rosés may use different grapes, origins and methods. The shared pink color does not make them the same wine or tell you how sweet they are.

What defines Prosecco DOC Rosé, and what to compare

All 113 Prosecco questions →

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