Around him, frescoes depicted the society’s four founding fathers knocking some chalices back with giddy medieval knights, a topless Bacchus and women in slinky togas. Bortolomiol, 55, wore a heavy white fustian cloak, black velvet cap and a gold medallion embossed with the brotherhood’s coat of arms. The grandmaster of the Confraternity of Valdobbiadene - a hallowed society of Prosecco makers from the wine’s traditional home on the Valdobbiadene and Conegliano hills - Mr. Bortolomiol’s first cousin - argued that the conflict over the Croatian wine presented a rare chance to advance a radical agenda: The time had come to ditch the name Prosecco. In a dark and vaulted cellar under a stone Prosecco museum on the Valdobbiadene hillside, Enrico Bortolomiol - Ms. “The important thing is to have an enemy,” he said. drug bust, he put seized Romanian “Pro-Secco,” a 10-pack of glitter “Prosecco Bath Bombs” and Prosecco Princess Shower Gel on the table of his headquarters. “Recognizing Prosek could legitimize a ton of other products that are imitations,” said Luca Giavi, the president of the Consortium to Protect Prosecco.Īs if demonstrating the yield of a D.E.A. The argument is that recognition by Brussels would confuse consumers and set a dangerous precedent.
allowed Prosek today, producers argue, could Farmesan be far behind?Īnd so Prosecco producers and local officials have joined Italy’s government to crush Prosek.
member state, presented a unique threat.Ī significant slice of the Italian economy is built on typically Italian products with names, and sounds, protected from imitation. But tiny Prosek, a legitimately old wine from an E.U. The European Union, in a major buzz kill for a Spritz-fueled multibillion euro industry, last month agreed to consider a longstanding application by Croatia to recognize Prosek, a method of making an obscure sweet - and still - dessert wine of the same name.īig Prosecco has fought off myriad other salvos - counterfeits like Meer-secco and Cansecco, and the warnings of British dentists about sugary spumante rotting the country’s teeth. War and internal strife have come to Prosecco country. Bortolomiol said a surprise attack had “disoriented us.”
An owner of the Bortolomiol winery and new president of a consortium of producers, Ms. “I feel like I’m going to battle,” said Elvira Maria Bortolomiol as she pantomimed carrying a rifle in an airy tasting room next to her vineyards. Couples clinked glasses in the town’s quaint Prosecco bars.īut behind the effervescent front, producers of Italy’s wildly popular sparkling white wine in the northeastern Veneto region were on war footing. Workers harvesting in the terraced vineyards squinted in the sun. Small pickup trucks carrying mounds of green grapes wound through Prosecco Road. But they also can’t agree on what, exactly, should be called Prosecco. A Battle of the Bubbles: War Comes to the Prosecco HillsĪ Croatian wine, Prosek, seeks an official designation, and Prosecco makers are up in arms.
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