There’s wine labeled prosecco, there’s real prosecco, there’s prosecco from the famed Cartizze vineyard, and then there’s prosecco from Casa Coste Piane. If you’re looking for a refreshing and inexpensive alternative to Spain’s cavaor California bubbly there’s plenty of the first two aforementioned prosecco from which to choose. But if you want a true alternative to champagne, a wine with guts and nerve as well as finesse, then find a bottle of Casa Coste Piane’s Prosecco di Valdobbiadene. This is the first prosecco I’ve ever tasted where I was reminded not only of good Prosecco or Franciacorta but of good Champagne.
From only 6 hectares of vines farmed by Loris Follador, this organic wine delivers on all fronts. The wine’s wildly penetrating mineral and floral character reaches its unreal heights no doubt, in part, from the vineyard’s 60 year-old vines. Yet my belief is that the secondary fermentation in bottle, without the dose of sugar or additional yeasts, is what allows the wine to achieve a sublime complexity that I almost never find in prosecco. This is the real deal, using only its natural yeasts to do all the work in the bottle. And because Follador employs no disgorgement in the end what you see is what you get (lees and all). Without question one of the finest sparkling wines you’ll find with complex floral and mineral flavors that would make many a Champagne producer blush.
