Forbes | Why You Should Visit The Steep, Winding, Beautiful Heart Of Italy’s Prosecco Country
“Just as champagne can only originate from the Champagne region of France, so the sparkling wine prosecco can only come from the Veneto and Friuli regions of northern Italy, two of twenty regions comprising the country.
Prosecco is made from the glera grape. To become a sparkling (fizzy) wine, the predominant method includes adding yeast and sugar not to individual bottles (as is done with the method Champenoise for champagne) but to steel tanks of wine where temperature and pressure can be controlled.
In Italy the highest denomination of controlled quality for wine is DOCG, or Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, whereas a respectable step below that is DOC.
Only the regions of Veneto and Friuli (the first includes the famed city of Venice) can produce DOC prosecco.
If you zoom in to the northeast portion of the region of Veneto on a map, you will find Treviso, one of several provinces comprising this region.
Zoom in even closer and you reach the bull’s eye within Treviso, named the Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG production zone. This somewhat of a bulky pistol shaped territory includes the city of Conegliano on the east and Valdobbiadene to the west. This is where DOCG prosecco can be produced.”