The Italians sure are PRO-secco!

So the title warrants some explanation if you have no idea how the Italian classification system works. Basically you know how ridiculous and absurd the French system is... well the Italian one is slightly better... kinda. This is actually a great example of how these laws are enforced to protect quality of wine. Now if you say prosecco, generally people think (like champagne) its a region- but their wrong, its actually the grape. Don't worry its a pretty forgivable mistake to make. But that is all about to change. Essentially on 17th of July last year there was a rule passed to ensure that Prosecco was no longer a wine produced form a particular type of grape, but rather the wine of a precise geographical area. Anyways back to the system of classification itself. So there used to be 3 classes- DOCG, DOC, and Vin de Tavola (VDT). So DOCG guaranteed the right grapes from the right region- DOC operates on the same principal, only DOCG wines have to pass a blind taste test first! This brings us to VDT (table wine)- does exactly what it says on the tin, or does it.... Well basically all the fuss about DOCGs and DOCs is great, but it leaves very little room for development of different styles. But this didn't stop the Italians- oh no! They kept experimenting, while conforming to the DOC rules, but they would still produce a lot of wines not made in the traditional method! So what happened was the VDT section became bit of a lucky dip- there were some of the most amazing wines lumped in with some of the worst all because the producer added a touch of a grape that wasn't permitted in the zone! So in fairness, the Powers that be (like good old berlusconi above) stepped up and created a fourth classification- IGT, or indicazione geografica tipica. So this didn't guarantee anything except that the wine was made in a non traditional method. I think this is a pretty good compromise- if anyone has ever tried the Montezovo Ca'Linverno you'll know what I'm talking about!
Anyways back to the Prosecco! So as i was saying above, because Prosecco was the grape and not the region, anyone could just label the bottle with Prosecco and therefore it would just fall under the IGT class. But as with anything that does well... the quality starts to fall, because its being over-produced! So... in order to fix this the name of the grape will no longer be Prosecco- its going to be know by Glera. And the region best known for its Prosecco (Conegliano-Valdobbiadene) now falls under the DOCG label, and all the other little regions around it fall under DOC.

So this will all start to take effect around the end of the year- so for those of you who love your Prosecco this is what you'll be looking out for. The highest end Prosecco will say Conegliano-valdobbiadene DOCG Prosecco Superiore. The next level will say DOC Prosecco. And if it says Prosecco and you don't see the DOC or the DOCG, then its most likely some cheap knock off- note for the IGT it will have to say Glera (the grapes new name).