Forget champaign. Try Prosecco instead.

Italian bubbles beat French bubbles. Italian sparkling wine has surpassed the more blasé champaign.  The typical Northern Italian sparkling wines last year have sold 307 million bottles. That was three million more than their French rivals.

Especially the US consumers are discovering the taste of Prosecco. And Italian producers are celebrating. For decades they have looked at their French „cousins“ with a mix of admiration and envy for their success.

Champaign is still considered the more noble variety of the sparkling wines. Even though Italy has its own king of sparkling wines: The tiny area where it is grown is called “Conegliano Valdobbiadene” and it produces one of the best and more expensive Proseccos in Italy.

No wonder hardly anybody knows it, you might think. How can you reach the word market with a name like “Conegliano Valdobbiadene “? Champaign for sure is a lot easier to pronounce and to remember.

Innocente Nardi, president of the association of Prosecco-makers in Conegliano Valdobbiadene got the point: “Everybody knows the name of champaign, but no one knows our name”, Nardi admits.  He is now trying to market the products of the 3000 wineries as “Prosecco superior”.

So if you can’t remember Conegliano Valdobbiadene, don’t blame yourself. Go for Prosecco Superiore !