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It’s bubble time: a homemade Prosecco tasting

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Image of four different bottles of Prosecco

I did a most awesome thing: got my mother hooked on Prosecco. And because I’m such a good daughter/fellow-wine lover, we had a Prosecco tasting while I was visiting for the holidays!

Basically, we raided the local Hy-Vee liquor store and bought most of the options available for Prosecco. To up the ante, I nabbed a bottle of Gruet Brut, a sparkling wine from New Mexico made in the champagne method (don’t poo-poo New Mexican sparklers; they’re fantastic and crazy affordable for this kind of wine (Gruet costs around $18)).

I thought it’d be a fun learning experiment to do a side-by-side tasting of these two methods of making sparkling wine. What’s the difference you ask? Basically, it’s in the secondary fermentation, the one that makes the bubbles. Prosecco uses the charmat method, which means all the wine is collectively fermented in a stainless steel tank. In the traditional (or champagne) method, the bubbles are made in each individual bottle.

Would there be a general difference in the kind or amount of bubbles, in the aroma and taste between the two wines?

The line-up, in order of tasting

Ecco Domani

Cupcake Vineyards

LaMarca

Gruet Brut

Santa Margherita

* Fun fact: the price points of all these wines were within a few bucks of each other and under $18, with the exception of Santa Margherita, which was $25.

Overview

There were a few similarities between all the Proseccos. They were all incredibly pale, pale yellow and had similar aromas with a lot of clean, citrus and pear. Ecco Domani was lightest on the nose, but had a distinct sweetness on the palate and a weird, bubblegummy aftertaste; the Santa Margherita had a touch of apricot on the palate and the strongest minerality (mmmm. . . wet stones) with LaMarca in second.

Gruet had the most intense aromas and flavors of all, with its notes of croissant and almonds, with a bit of green apple thrown in.

LaMarca was striking in how much it popped with acid. Ecco Domani had about as much fizz as a can of soda, which isn’t too surprising since the bottle used a screw cap. Cupcake and Santa Margherita produced a lot of glorious, foamy bubbles. Gruet was the Bubble King.

Crowd favorite

Out of the five participants in the tasting, the majority preferred LaMarca the best, mainly, I think, because it didn’t overwhelm with bubbles. Me, I say the more bubbles the merrier, but I was the minority opinion so that pushed me more into Cupcake’s camp. But for the price-point ($13-$15) and a similar flavor profile, Cupcake and LaMarca are both solid for casual drinking and cocktails.

Ecco Domani was so-so. It was so light and clean there wasn’t match happening in the glass at all. So unless you need something ice cold with a hint of fizz for a sweaty day by the pool,  I’d skip this one and pay an extra couple bucks for either Cupcake or LaMarca.

My favorite

Out of all the wines, I gravitated toward Gruet, which doesn’t seem at all fair since it’s a very different wine than the others. Though I was glad my fellow-tasters enjoyed the Gruet, they all preferred one of the Proseccos (prior to the tasting, almost all of them also said they didn’t like Champagne. Gasp, I know so I consider this a victory).

Next to all those light and clean wines, this champagne method wine really sparkled. It was the most bubbly, the strongest on the nose, and with its gold hue, the most intense in color. With that tell-tale toasty breadiness from Chardonnay, it also had the most distinct flavor profile, which stood in stark contrast to the very neat, clean, pleasing citrus notes in the pale, slightly less bubbly Prosecco.

Regardless, there wasn’t a bad wine among these five. Like with pretty much everything else wine related, which bottle you end up reaching for depends more on your mood and taste. Craving a mimosa or Kir Royale, go with Cupcake or LaMarca. Have a hankering for something richer, with a salty snack? Grab the Gruet.

Or whatever you want.



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