Types of Prosecco: four questions at the shelf

How many types of Prosecco are there?

It depends how you count, which is why nobody agrees. The useful answer: every Prosecco answers four questions. How fizzy is it: spumante, frizzante or still. How sweet: six levels from Brut Nature to Demi-sec. What colour: white or rosé. And from where: Prosecco DOC, or one of the two hill zones labelled Superiore DOCG.

That sounds like a lot of choice. In practice the shelf asks you one real question, and it is the one with the trick in it.

1. How fizzy? Spumante, frizzante, tranquillo

Nearly all of it gets its bubbles in a large sealed tank, the Charmat or Martinotti method. A few hill producers make a cloudy, bottle-fermented style labelled sui lieviti, often called col fondo.³ Lovely, and rare.

2. How sweet? The six levels, and the trick

1. Brut Nature0–3 gBone dry. Oysters, salty snacks.
2. Extra Brut0–6 gVery dry. An aperitif.
3. Brut0–12 gDry and fresh. Almost everything, and cocktails.
4. Extra Dry12–17 gSofter, a touch of sweetness. Sipping, spicy food.
5. Dry17–32 gNoticeably sweet. Fruit, lighter desserts.
6. Demi-sec32–50 gSweet. Dessert.

Grams of sugar per litre, the standard scale for sparkling wine.⁴

Here’s the trick: Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut. People reach for Extra Dry because it sounds like the serious bottle. It’s actually the friendlier, rounder one. Neither is better; just buy the one you meant to. The Brut Truth explains how the words ended up backwards.

Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut. Nobody is happy about it, and nobody is going to change it.

3. What colour? White and rosé

White Prosecco is at least 85% Glera, with up to 15% from a short list of other permitted grapes.⁵ Prosecco DOC Rosé is Glera with 10 to 15% Pinot Nero (Pinot Noir).⁵ It is always sparkling, always vintage-dated, so the label says Millesimato and the year, made only from Brut Nature to Extra Dry, and it spends at least 60 days in the tank.⁵

Pink doesn’t mean sweet. A rosé labelled Brut is as crisp as a white Brut. It just looks better in photographs.

4. From where? DOC and DOCG

1. Prosecco DOCNine provinces across the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia.
2. Prosecco DOC Treviso, Prosecco DOC TriesteThe same rules, grown and bottled in that one province.
3. Asolo Prosecco DOCGThe Asolo hills, to the west.
4. Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCGThe steep hills between the two towns.
5. Rive di …One of 43 named hillside areas inside those hills.
6. Superiore di CartizzeAbout 107 hectares of the steepest slopes in Valdobbiadene.

Widest at the top, one hill at the bottom. The narrower the place on the label, the steeper the slope.

Prosecco DOC is the big area: nine provinces across the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia.⁵ Two of those provinces may add their names, Prosecco DOC Treviso and Prosecco DOC Trieste, when the grapes are grown and the wine bottled there.⁵ Inside the area are two smaller, steeper hill zones with stricter rules, labelled Superiore DOCG: Conegliano Valdobbiadene, with its 43 Rive and the hill of Cartizze,³ and Asolo to the west.⁶

DOCG means stricter rules and hillside grapes. It doesn’t promise you’ll like the wine more, any more than a corner office promises a better lunch. What Prosecco DOC means on the label.

What does Millesimato mean?

A vintage Prosecco: at least 85% of the wine comes from the year on the label.⁵ It is optional for white Prosecco and required for rosé. It tells you when the grapes were picked, not that the wine should be kept. Drink it young.

What is the alcohol content of Prosecco?

Usually about 11%. The rules set a minimum of 11% for spumante, counting any sugar left in the wine, and 10.5% for frizzante and still.⁵ Sweetness and strength are separate things: an Extra Dry is not stronger or weaker than a Brut because of the word on the label. For the comparison with beer and still wine, see What is Prosecco?

The Prosecco shelf: a field guide

Stand by the Prosecco shelf for ten minutes and you’ll see the same four shoppers.

• The label decoder. Reads every word, then buys the one with the nicest bottle. Correct.
• The Extra Dry loyalist. Has bought Extra Dry for ten years thinking it was the dry one, and loved every bottle. Don’t tell her. Or do; she’ll laugh.
• The DOCG climber. Wants the hill wine for the dinner party. Right instinct, and worth the extra few dollars when it’s the main event.
• The mimosa maker. Wants Brut, wants six, wants them cold. The most efficient person in the store.

Which type of Prosecco should you buy?

• Mimosas, spritzes, cocktailsProsecco DOC spumante, Brut. Dry wine plus juice is the right balance.
• Sipping, if you like it softExtra Dry. Rounder, a touch sweeter, lovely on its own.
• Pink, but still crispProsecco DOC Rosé Brut. Strawberry on the nose, dry in the glass.
• A dinner party’s main bottleA Superiore DOCG from the hills, or a Rive if you can find one.