If you want to celebrate the holidays with affordable bubbly, look to Prosecco. It’s great for toasting, for serving with lighter courses—from seafood to chicken and turkey to pasta—and for enjoying as an after-dinner drink. It’s a wine that pairs well with spicy foods, including Chinese, Indian, Thai, and other Asian cuisines. And because of its lightness and high acidity, it can easily be drunk with a vinaigrette-dressed salad.

For cocktails, you can enhance Prosecco:

 
Add the liqueur to a flute or tulip glass, then top it with the Prosecco. Give it the lightest stir: You don’t want to break the bubbles.

Prosecco (pro-SEK-o) is the name of a village in the Veneto region of northeast Italy (photo #2). It’s located in the hills of the province of Treviso, between the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene.

The town gives its name to the Prosecco sparkling wines that are made in the area. The wine is often labeled Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene, after its the hilly area where the two towns are situated. The Prosecco grape—now known as the Glera grape†—is the principal grape grown there.

Glera, a thin-skinned green grape, has been grown in the regions of Veneto and Friuli for hundreds of years†. Prosecco wines must contain at least 85% Glera.

Here’s more about Prosecco.
 
 
LA GIOIOSA PROSECCO

La Gioiosa (joy-OH-suh) is one of Italy’s leading producers of Prosecco. The name literally means “the joyous one.” We recently tasted two varieties from the line: La Gioiosa Prosecco Treviso DOC and La Gioiosa Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG.

 
While the Prosecco Treviso was light and charming, the Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG is a heavier-body, more nuanced wine. We enjoyed it with every course at Thanksgiving dinner, including the turkey, and will be having it at Christmas dinner as well.

La Gioiosa Prosecco Types

While we only tasted the two Proseccos above, the La Gioiosa line includes other styles of Prosecco, including brut, dry, extra dry, and rosé.

See the whole line here.

Discover more on the company website.
 
 
DOC AND DOCG PROSECCO: THE DIFFERENCE

Most Proseccos are DOC wines, Denominazione d’Origine Controllata/ This designation attests that the grapes were grown, and the wine was made, in the Treviso area of the Veneto.

Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG, on the other hand, is produced exclusively with grapes in the hills of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene zone, an area with superior terroir* (photo #3).

Under Italian wine law, DOCG is the highest designation of quality among Italian wines. It stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin.
 
 
> THE HISTORY OF PROSECCO
 
 
> THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SPARKLING WINE

[1] La Gioiosa Prosecco: sparkling wine for any celebration (photos #1, #3 and #4 © La Gioiosa).

[2] The Veneto region of Italy, home to the towns of Belluno, Padua, Rovigo, Venice, Verona and Vincenza—and most important for this article, Treviso, the home of Prosecco (image © Vonvikken | Wikipedia).

[3] The hills of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene zone, home to the town of Prosecco and to the DOCG grapes.

[4] La Gioiosa Prosecco is available in 750 ml bottles and 187 ml splits.

*Terroir, pronounced tur-WAH, is a French agricultural term referring to the unique set of environmental factors in a specific habitat that affects a crop’s qualities. These include climate, elevation, proximity to a body of water, slant of the land, soil type, and amount of sun. These environmental characteristics give the wines produced from these grapes a unique character.

†The Glera grape is of Slovenian origin. It was brought to the village of Prosecco from the Karst region, a plateau that extends across the border of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. The variety was formerly mostly referred to as Prosecco, but in the EU was renamed “Glera” in 2009 to make room for the protection of “Prosecco” as the name of a geographically-protected wine [source].