Prosecco is hot this season! Best Wine Friday!

Have you noticed all the Prosecco showing up at the trendy places? I certainly have.

It makes some sense to me. It is cheaper than champagne and has a cleaner taste but has the romance of being from Italy.

I've noticed instead of champagne many nice and trendy places have started offering Prosecco as their entry level sparkling wine choice by the glass. Cheers to them.

I've been partaking of several and indeed I've been enjoying them. It is a excellent way to start an evening out..........or to be the drink of choice all evening long.

Prosecco is a sparkling wine made in Italy. The upper North East part. It is a grape, becoming more known as Glera, and a place and a style of wine. It typically is light with nice fruit but dry. One big difference between champagne and prosecco is in how it is made. Champagne goes through the second fermentation, where it gets the carbonation, in the bottle. This time spent resting on dead yeast cells for several years gives the wine a nutty and toasty quality. Prosecco by contrast utilizes a Charmat method where the secondary fermentation is completed in stainless steel tank. The french created a stigma to disparage sparkling wine not made in the traditional method. It is important prosecco is made this way because the fruit is delicate and wouldn't handle that process. Just like you don't see light whites like Albarino or Pinot Grigio barrel fermented and aged. The result is appropriately made, delicious sparkling wine that doesn't cost you a ton of cash. Unlike Champagne, it doesn't age well and should be consumed young and fresh. Although most Americans don't like aged Champagne either....which should explain why we are loving the Prosecco so much.....because as Champagne ages it grabs more of the nutty, bready notes.

I hope the trend continues. Many countries make nice sparkling wine. Maybe some of them will make it to the US someday.

For today, I'm recommending one I had at Houston's on the plaza called LaMarca but I've also had some nice examples from Lunetta, Mionetto and Zardetto. Yes, I've started looking for them when I go out.

La Marca is my favorite so far. It was bright with floral and peach and citrus fruits. The bubbles hit just right for my rendezvous with a friend for a holiday tipple this week. A tiny bit of googling also revealed to me that the Wine Spectator gave it 90 points. Nice.

Is there much hotter than a sexy, beautiful woman drinking sparkling wine?

I think it was like $8 bucks a glass and while I'm not into labels......this one is a very cool light blue that has a very upscale look to it......yep, I said upscale to describe prosecco.

If you are having a NYE party this would be the perfect thing to serve for guests. A conversation piece and affordable. If you only serve sparkling plan on 1 bottle per 3 or 4 people per hour and you'll be rolling right through to midnight.

Cheers!