A new vintage of the Italian sparkler is released this month. Just the excuse for a romantic trip, writes Mary Dowey
Tired of limp red roses and excessive Dairy Milk? The patron saint of passion deserves better. This year I have two suggestions, one for immediate consumption and the other for longer-term consideration. The first is to pop open a bottle of prosecco on St Valentine's night - for the sheer, fizzy, frivolous fun of it. The second is to whisk your beloved off on a heady weekend trip, starting in the pure country air of the Prosecco Route, up in the foothills of the Dolomites, and ending in the seductive embrace of Venice.
A couple of months ago a visit to Bisol - family owned and among prosecco's most respected producers - provided the perfect excuse to road-test this combination. I'd recommend it to anyone. For one thing, the Prosecco region is less than an hour by car from Venice airport, so you can leave Dublin on a Friday afternoon and be up in a mountain-village restaurant, salivating before an enormous spit over an open fire, by dinner time.
As in the Champagne region, you will discover (I think) that it is not only possible but also wonderfully pleasurable to down glass after glass of fizz, day after day, with food or without. But the two regions couldn't be more different. Champagne is formal, aloof and rather grand. The Prosecco area is gloriously down to earth. "Country-chic casual dress", our hosts advised. "No neckties; this is the home of Benetton, so men in pink or lime-green sweaters are not uncommon."
I'd better come clean and admit that, until about two years ago, I paid prosecco scant attention. It seemed outshone, both by its aristocratic French rival and by a legion of up-and-coming sparklers from the New World, all offering more depth of flavour. Then, suddenly, it was the height of fashion, demanding re-examination. I see now that I completely missed the point. Prosecco is all about lightness, softness, delicacy, youth - not body or richness or staying power.
Unlike the most seriously regarded sparkling wines, which undergo a second fermentation in bottle and remain on the yeast lees for a long period, prosecco goes through its second fermentation in a sealed tank, a process that wine buffs are inclined to turn up their noses at. It turns out this approach is essential. "A second fermentation in bottle is against the rules of the Prosecco region," explains Giovanni Oliva of Bisol. "It would be far too yeasty and spoil the fresh fruitiness of the wine."
The latest vintage, all 40 million bottles of it, is released each February. Another great reason to visit around this time of year. Prosecco is not, generally speaking, a sparkler to nurture in your cellar but one to knock back at the first opportunity, while it still smells tantalisingly of fresh pears and summer flowers.
Prosecco - neither the drink nor the region, but the grapes - has been grown on south-facing slopes up in the rolling hills around Treviso for centuries, possibly stretching back to the time of the Romans. With 4,300 hectares of vineyard split between 3,600 owners, many holdings are minuscule - at weekend-hobbyist level - with only about 130 wineries of any size.
The Prosecco Route, winding through 40-odd kilometres of pretty mountain scenery, links the two main towns of prosecco's heartland, Valdobbiadene and Conegliano. Names worth looking out for on labels, by the way, because both define the region associated with the finest wine.
Within that region the hill of Cartizze, rising up near the village of Santo Stefano, is Prosecco's Côte d'Or or Haut-Médoc, so prized for its vineyards that a hectare of land costs more than €1 million. A mouthful or two of Bisol Cartizze, an off-dry prosecco with superb concentration (Enzo Ferrari's favourite), suggests it is probably worth it. Standing on the summit, you can see beyond a scattering of small villages, each with a tall, square campanile, all the way to the Venice lagoon.
Take some advice from one who didn't: walk plenty, to build up an appetite that can do justice to the region's hearty cooking. If it's still winter you'll feast on the curling red tendrils of radicchio di Treviso, "the flower of the winter", in every imaginable form, alongside game, liver and all manner of spit-roasted meats, in cosy restaurants such as Al Caminetto in Follina or Da Gigetto in Miane. (Don't start drinking here until you have seen the madly eccentric wine cellar of Luigi Bartolini, its owner, or you'll think you are imagining its baroque riches - such as an entire confessional full of Château d'Yquem.)
Then it's time for Venice, a short hop down the motorway. You don't have to keep drinking prosecco, of course - but why not, when the Dandolo bar in the lavish Venetian-Gothic Danieli Hotel springs so many cocktail surprises?
Forget about bellinis around this time of year, when there are no fresh peaches. Instead, try a bucintoro (strawberry juice and prosecco), a mimosa (orange juice and prosecco), a sprizz (Campari, angostura bitters and prosecco), a bianca neve (pineapple juice and prosecco) . . .
Good heavens, did we really sample all those before a lunch of crispy fritto misto and the seafood risotto at which Venice excels? We did. "And now a sgroppino!" Giovanni exclaims. What's that? "It means something to untie the knot. For the digestion it is really good." Drunk at the end of the meal, it is a kind of liquid sorbet of lemon, prosecco and vodka.
Mysteriously, it seems to work. A long walk at dusk through the city's narrow streets is magical, with the windows of cake shops and glass shops - there are hundreds of both - lit up like glowing treasure troves. All those hump-backed bridges are good for the constitution, and the last gondolas of the day, gliding over the glossy black water, a constant distraction. Then, what do you know, it's time for another little flute of sparkling refreshment.
GETTING THERE
Aer Lingus flies between Dublin and Venice four times a week. Fares start at €98 return, including taxes. See www.aerlingus.com
WHERE TO STAY
On the Prosecco route - Foresteria Duca di Dolle, Rolle, Treviso, www.bisol.it, 00-39-0423-900138. Modern comfort in a delightful farmhouse setting. From €65 a person, breakfast included. In Venice - Palazzo Abadessa, Calle Priuli 4011, Cannaregio, www.abadessa.com, 00-39-0412413784. Magnificent small palazzo, only steps from the Grand Canal, run with flair by owner Maria Luisa Rossi. Double rooms from €150 a night, breakfast included.