We gathered every Australian sparkling prosecco we could find – whether or not it uses the contentious word ‘prosecco’ on the label – and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind, and each panellist named their top six wines. Below are the wines that made the panellists’ top-six selections from the tasting.
Our panel: Peta Baverstock, winemaker, Cuvée Co.; Prasad Patil, winemaker, Dal Zotto; Melissa Brauer, wine educator, Regina Vino and founder, The Prosecco Festival; Alex Meikle-Briggs, head sommelier, Grossi Restaurants; Iona Baker DipWSET, wine importer, Trembath & Taylor; Lilian Carter, winemaker and consultant, Vinemark; Andrew Wyse, founder, Cardwell Cellars; Kara Maisano DipWSET, Wine Director, Masani.
A favourite for Brauer, Patil and Baverstock, this prosecco was celebrated for its vibrancy, detail and delicious charm. Brauer described it as “an early standout,” with a floral perfume and red gooseberry on a velvety, almond-edged palate, finishing long and fresh with citrus peel and a whisper of bitterness. Patil found lemon myrtle, yuzu blossom, green apple and honeydew, with a savoury edge and preserved lemon character that added “depth and seriousness.” Baverstock lit up over this wine’s bright citrus lift and juicy red apple core, calling it “bright sunshine bottled … a loooooong finish. An easy lunch-time drink – ding-dong!”
Selected by Carter, Meikle-Briggs, Baker and Brauer as one of the standout wines of the tasting, this is a beautifully composed prosecco with broad appeal. Carter called it “fresh and fun – a crowd-pleaser,” with cool-climate citrus purity and green apple on a refreshingly crisp, dry finish. Meikle-Briggs highlighted a medley of ripe stone fruits, yellow apple, feijoa and grapefruit, with a chalky texture and delicate mousse elevating jasmine and acacia florals. Baker noted its pale colour and complex aromatics – honeycomb, mandarin, honeysuckle and pink apple – with a super-dry, cottony grip that made it “balanced and enticing … a contender for my top wine.” For Brauer, this wine “ticked all the boxes” as a classic Australian prosecco, with lemon zest and zingy sherbet notes leading into a crisp, lingering finish – “an absolutely perfect all-rounder.”
Named in the top wines of the day by Meikle-Briggs, Patil and Brauer, this prosecco stood out for its complexity, structure and individuality. Meikle-Briggs was struck by a unique oat and brioche character layered with red apple skin, peach, guava and grapefruit, all wrapped in a fine mousse with a touch of umami – “really something special.” Patil called it “inviting, energetic and vibrant,” showing green apple, pear and lemon with tertiary notes of cream cheese and brioche, a savoury thread and great length. For Brauer, it was one of her top three: golden in hue, evoking “baked Granny Smiths with golden syrup and cinnamon,” with a lush mouthfeel and lingering notes of stewed rhubarb and apricot kernel. “I’d drink this again and again.”
A top pick for Baverstock and Baker, this wine was celebrated for its balance of savoury coastal character and vivid fruit. Baverstock said, “This is the summer seaside in a bottle,” praising oyster shell and brine aromatics with signature green apple and the “grip of rockmelon skins,” delivered on a chalk-dry palate with endless length. Baker noted its pale lemon hue and persistent fine bead, along with a delicate interplay of golden delicious apples, peaches and jasmine flowers against subtle pastry notes. She loved the wine’s freshness and purity, calling the texture “mouth-coating and gentle – a little creamy and plush at the same time.”
Chosen as one of the top wines of the day by Brauer, Meikle-Briggs, Patil and Maisano, this was a clear crowd favourite in the lineup. Brauer exclaimed “LOVE THIS ONE,” drawn in by its nostalgic wisteria and almond perfume and creamy mousse, with Meyer lemon rind and ripe stone fruit leading to a long, red-apple-skin finish. Meikle-Briggs called it “lush, juicy, almost velvety,” praising its just-picked peach core, layered with yellow pear, mandarin, apricot, florals and a fresh twist of mint and thyme. He loved the mousse’s creaminess and how it danced lightly on the tongue, calling it elegant, well-rounded, and beautifully structured. Patil admired its elegance, with flavours of wildflowers, grapefruit, honeysuckle and lemongrass, bright acidity and persistent bubbles. Maisano found pomelo, candied cedro and Corella pear in a wine she described as “entertaining and subtle,” with a clean, tart finish that made it ideal for antipasti or as “the perfect Bellini.”
Maisano, Wyse and Baverstock all included this in their top wines from the day, noting its versatility and flair. Maisano was transported to “a balmy summer’s night over barbecued seafood,” highlighting ripe white peaches, acacia and lemon sorbet, with structure and persistence that made it an ideal match for smoky octopus or saucy mussels. Wyse admired its savoury, layered character – seaspray, lime zest and Williams pear, with green almond adding crunch and a long finish supported by finely judged mousse. He noted its range: equally suited to papdi chaat or beef rendang. Baverstock called it “a show-starter with loads of glitz and glamour,” bursting with orchard fruit, mimosa flowers and melon, with a slight Whiz Fizz sweetness she suggested pairing with spicy dishes – or breakfast Bellinis.
Meikle-Briggs, Wyse and Maisano each selected this wine as one of their top six proseccos of the blind tasting, drawn to its elegance and charm. “Incredibly delicate,” said Meikle-Briggs. “Vibrant notes of ripe yellow peach, nectarine, and kiwiberries all carried by a fine, gentle mousse … it developed a subtle jasmine floral character, and even a faint hint of petroleum – unexpected but intriguing.” He described it as a lighter style of prosecco that was “elegant, fun, and full of character.” Wyse called the wine “quiet but assured – hovering in the stonefruit realm, particularly Concorde pear and white peach, with a touch of citrus oil and chalk dust.” He praised its fresh, cooling palate – “honeydew melon and green apple snapping against a spine of crushed gravel and saline lime” – and suggested spongecake with strawberries and unsweetened cream as a dreamy pairing. For Maisano, this was “highly crafted Prosecco” that hit all the right notes, with “snow pea flowers, white nectarine, preserved lemons and green apple skin with a tingle of fairy floss at the end … utterly thirst-quenching, yet also perfect for mixing into a Hugo.”
Patil and Maisano both counted this among their top six wines, noting its textural intrigue and sparkling lift. “This wine just lifts that extra notch in taste, in weight, and in texture,” said Patil. “There’s a clean citrus backbone … a lovely mousse with lemony, zesty flavours. Kaffir lime, lemon thyme, apple and lifted floral aromatics blend in nicely with the structure of the wine.” Maisano was struck by its balance of the exotic and the refined, describing “roast cashew, Brazil nut, sunflower, Beurre Bosc pear and clingstone peach characters” wrapped in “a firm structure laced with chalky minerality.” She said it was deceptively exotic, “yet still structured like a fine sparkling wine with agility – a wine to linger over at your leisure.”
Maisano and Baker both found this prosecco worthy of their top-six picks, admiring its precision and aromatic clarity. “Gold highlights lent to a fine, creamy mousse,” said Maisano. “Brimming with green apples, underripe white peach, nashi pear, custard apple, oriental lilies and magnolias … ending with lemon sherbet and lime pulp, it finishes deliciously sharply.” Baker was taken with the wine’s mineral, quartz-like quality: “It showed a persistent and precise core of flavours – zippy grapefruit juice, lemon, and sweeter ripe white peach intermingled with a tannic grip reminiscent of white stones and linen.” She noted that it “finishes with a fine mousse” and an austerity that kept it lifted and compelling.
Selected by Maisano and Brauer in their top six of the day, this prosecco impressed with its classic character and precision. “Hits the spot with a smooth mousse and blanched almond finish,” said Maisano. “All my favourite prosecco aromatics – green pear, crabapple, camellia, lily of the valley, peach granita – held together by that almond textural note.” Brauer found it expressive and finely tuned: “Crunchy Pink Lady apple, ripe nectarine, and delicate floral blossom” on the nose, with a palate that struck “a perfect balance between bright acidity and juicy fruit.” She noted flavours of peach and honeyed citrus, a fine persistent mousse, and a finish that lingered with “apple peel, white spice, and a gentle creamy softness.”
Wyse selected this as one of his top six wines of the tasting, drawn to its tension, generosity and flair. “The nose is beguiling,” he said, “tropical fruit and floral perfume swirling in tandem – jasmine, guava, mango skin … Bracing acidity and a luxurious mousse.” While he noted there was plenty of generosity, it remained “refined,” with a saline texture and mineral tension cutting through the mid-palate. “Melon, lime juice, and a faint trace of saffron” rounded it out. He described it as “aromatic and spicy – a great wine for the dinner table,” recommending malai curry or prawn empanadas with chimichurri. “A great entry for takeaway dinner night.”
Both Patil and Meikle-Briggs counted this among their top wines of the day, praising its precision, lift and food-friendliness. “Intriguing flavours – citrus, apple, pear, bread dough – with a bit of residual sweetness,” said Patil. “The fine silky texture, driven by secondary flavours of pastry and brioche, is amazing.” He suggested it would pair particularly well with Korean dishes like bibimbap or spicy kimchi noodles. Meikle-Briggs noted the wine’s “fine mousse and a bit of a ‘bite’,” with yellow grapefruit, lime and green apple giving a citrus kick, beautifully counterbalanced by jasmine florals. “Red apple, quince, and ripe yellow pear bring in a nice fruit balance,” he added, describing the finish as clean and refreshing, with just the right touch of bitterness.
Baverstock included this in her top six of the tasting for its sheer drinkability and joyful personality. “Want a refreshing drink? This wine says ‘drink me’ with its persistent mousse and bright sparkle in the glass.” She described it as “sherbet sticks, fruit salad and enhanced Tropicana high notes,” with a soft carbonation and a creamy, light-bodied palate. For her, the wine was all about “drive – the acid drive that I look for every time.”
Wyse rated this wine among his top six of the lineup, finding it distinctively savoury and layered. “Savoury from the outset – acacia, honeysuckle, toast and a hint of smoky agave. Then comes yuzu: electric, mouth-watering, and persistent.” He praised the wine’s progression – “lavender and sage mid-palate, before grilled peach and salt carry things home.” With its fine mousse and lingering saline finish, he felt it belonged “at the centre of a generous table – antipasti, bresaola, cantaloupe and prosciutto.”
Baker and Baverstock both picked this cloudy, col fondo–style prosecco in their top six, for its textural appeal and balance of intrigue and elegance. “Slightly cloudy and pale lemon-coloured,” said Baker, “with fresh lemon pith, white floral gardenia, blanched white almonds and fresh fennel.” She was impressed by its “ultra-fine delicate bead,” elegant fruit notes, and fine, silty, clay-like mouthfeel. She praised it as a “lovely refined example of Australian col fondo–style prosecco”, noting that this style is becoming “more and more sought after.” Baverstock called it “a cloudy little number with a persistent mousse and an intriguingly attractive nose,” led by green apple and baked pear with yeasty undertones. “Lemon pith flavours play into a little phenolic grab,” she said, “but it’s a creamily effervescent, soft-acid, soapy style that works due to the ethereal lightness of the wine.”
Baker said this wine challenged her at first, but ultimately won her over, earning a place in her top six. “While pale-coloured, this wine had an upfront nose – at first I really struggled with its abrupt nature, but as it developed, these characters held my interest.” She noted “richer red gala apples and orange peel, with yeasty vegemite and mushrooms,” describing it as having “good persistence of flavours” and being “enticingly funky.”
Carter named this in her top six, drawn to its punchy energy and balance. “Bright. Zesty. Juicy. Wakes up your palate. Gets your taste buds going,” she said, noting flavours of “zesty lemons and limes” and “juicy citrus and grated apple.” She praised its “crisp and lively” entry, “fine bubbles and racy acidity giving it drive,” and a spot-on acid–sugar balance. “Really nice drinkability,” she concluded, adding that she would be “more than happy drinking this with some crispy tempura whiting.”
Carter selected this wine as one of her top six, describing it as “joyful, but a bit more grown-up.” She highlighted its delicate green apple fruit, lifted by “a little waft of toasted brioche and almonds.” For her, the palate was “really bright and tight,” and what stood out was “a sophistication to how the flavours linger.” The sophistication on display here made it an event wine for her: “This wine would hold its own served with fancy canapés.”
Among Wyse’s top six selections of the tasting, this prosecco impressed with its bold green aromatics and citrus drive. “It’s teeming with clary sage, dill, and white peach at first pour,” he said. “The palate attack bursts with pomelo, grapefruit, finger lime, all spiked with marjoram and fresh grass. Honeydew and cucumber juice bring a cool and refreshing finish.” He called it “an ideal aperitif,” and a clever match for “raw or acid-bright dishes – oysters with lime or passionfruit, or corn tostadas with pineapple salsa.” Its “verdant, herbal intensity just begs for sunshine.”
This distinctive ‘pét-nat’ prosecco made it into the top six for both Brauer and Wyse, each celebrating its unique character. “This wine smelled like home to me,” said Brauer. “Baked pie crust on the nose, delicate lemon zest and globs of fruit compote on the palate, with a lingering finish of ruby grapefruit rind.” She praised it as “a perfect expression of good prosecco fruit when left to its own devices to finish fermenting in the bottle.” Wyse found it “bold, botanical, and richly textural,” opening in a rush of “lime and salted grapefruit, underpinned by a savoury autolytic note – like lemon curd piped into a still-warm doughnut.” That warmth, he said, shifted into “blood orange, camphor, fennel frond, crushed juniper,” before closing with a whisper of chamomile. “There’s a clarity and nerve to this that I find totally arresting.”
Selected by Carter as one of her top proseccos of the tasting, this wine stood out for its bold fruit profile and depth. “A bolder expression of prosecco,” she said, “with fat, juicy, ripe limes and soft, ripe Beurre Bosc pears.” She noted a yeasty autolytic element that “adds mid-palate weight and a nutty marzipan complexity.” With its friendly charm and fuller flavour, she suggested it was better suited to food than party-starting, thanks to a subtle touch of grip on the finish.
Baverstock named this among her top six wines for its brightness, fizz, and all-round crowd appeal. “This fizz would go down a treat during the lunch break at the cricket,” she said. “It’s a sorbet swirling with lemon pith, freshly-picked pineapple leaf and green kiwi – fruit-driven straight down the bat.” The palate, she said, “rocks – full of sherbet, great fizzy carbonation that ‘pops’ to a creamy finish.” With sweetness balanced by bright acidity, she summed it up with a call to action: “Grab the chicken and cucumber sandwiches. Yum!”
Baker included this in her top six for its simplicity and purity. “I liked this prosecco for its simplicity,” she said, describing “a lightly intense and fruity nose of white nectarine, lemon pith, floral jasmine, and Granny Smith apple.” The flavours on the palate offered a “persistent length of refreshing flavours – uncomplicated green apple and lemon sorbet with a fine mousse.” She called it “a lovely aperitif style,” and recommended that it be enjoyed “on its own or with classic seafood dishes like kingfish carpaccio or fresh rock oysters.”
Carter selected this as one of her six favourite wines from the blind tasting, praising its effortless drinkability. “Hits the drinkability nail on the head,” she said. “Ethereal aromas, and a fruit spectrum spanning fresh pear through to ripe lemon.” She noted how well the palate balanced “fruit weight with acid line, and layers in some nutty complexity,” concluding that it “finishes very clean and pure without any hint of phenolics or sugar. Nicely complete, and really enjoyable with or without food.”
This was one of Meikle-Briggs’ top six picks of the tasting, a wine he said immediately stood out for its “hazy, cloudy appearance,” which gave it “a sense of rustic charm.” He praised its “rich and textural” mouthfeel, comparing it to “the full-bodied, saline character of palomino from Jerez in Spain, or the col fondo style of prosecco.” For him, it carried “great minerality and salty drive,” with “powerful saltiness paired with nutty flavours like hazelnut and almond.” He also picked up “burnt toffee, barley, and caramelised apple that reminded me of a toffee apple – which took me back to being a kid!” A touch of biscuit and white pepper added further complexity, while the wine’s “great bitterness” on the finish brought balance. “Very gastronomic,” he said – “ideal with anything from fried chicken and anchovy toast to a cheese platter or mushroom risotto.”
Patil named this prosecco in his top six, praising its lively and expressive character. “The flavours bounce out of the glass,” he said, noting “Granny Smith apple crunch, lemon curd, grapefruit pith, pear, and quince paste.” He described it as “vibrant and energetic,” with “a nice, refreshing acid line” and a “citrusy-bright” finish that flowed with flavour. For food matches, he suggested “mussels cooked with harissa and basil, Maine-style lobster rolls, crusted branzino with fingerling potatoes – even better sitting at the seashore at the end of spring or early summer.”
Carter included this prosecco among her top six wines of the tasting, noting the “white blossom and floral lift to start,” along with “clean green pear and delicate white peach” and “just a whiff of (nice) reduction” that settled down to add intrigue. She described the palate as “clean and pure, with a lovely lemon pith textural element – maybe even saline.” For her, it finished “nicely complete” and showed that it was “on-trend – refreshing and very drinkable, without being sweet or overly ripe – but also dialling up the interest level a notch.”
Prosecco is – at least in the Australian context – not only a grape variety, but also a style of sparkling wine made from that same variety. While the variety appears to have originated in the Istrian peninsula of what is now Croatia, the home of the style of wine made from it is Italy’s Conegliano–Valdobbiadene area, about 55 kilometres north-west of Venice. Here the grape variety is made into sparkling wine in a number of different ways, the most common of which is known as the Charmat method. This involves a secondary fermentation in large, pressure-sealed stainless steel tanks, where the carbon dioxide generated by that fermentation is trapped and dissolves into the wine, making it fizzy. By contrast, the traditional method of sparkling wine production (used in Champagne and other regions such as Tasmania) involves a secondary fermentation in each individual bottle – a significantly more labour-intensive process. A smaller number of proseccos are made in the col fondo (literally ‘with the bottom’) style – similar to a pét-nat, with fermentation lees still present in the bottle.
The use of the Charmat method to carbonate prosecco wines means that their production costs are significantly lower than for traditional method sparkling wines. This fact helped the proseccos from Conegliano–Valdobbiadene become popular as a bang-for-buck alternative to Champagne – first throughout Italy in the 1960s, then in wider Europe in the ’80s, and throughout much of the rest of the world starting in the late ’90s and early 2000s. This price-driven popularity also proved to be a double-edged sword, consequently creating something of an image problem for both the variety and the style. Despite the best efforts of quality-minded producers, prosecco swiftly developed a reputation as a mere light, frothy quaffer of a sparkling wine – the kind of thing you drink if you can’t afford the more ‘serious’ Champagne. (The fact that prosecco is also a key ingredient in the now wildly popular Aperol Spritz cocktail hasn’t helped that perception, either.)
While both variety and style were slowly starting to develop an international market in the mid to late ’90s, a seemingly unremarkable family gathering on a veranda in Victoria’s King Valley region took place – one that inadvertently spawned a multimillion dollar branch of the Australian wine industry, set the stage for a tense trade dispute between Australia and the European Union, and gave the international story of prosecco a new and compelling twist.
The Dal Zotto family had no intention of transforming the King Valley as a wine region or creating a diplomatic tussle when they sat down for that veranda-table chat in 1996. Family patriarch Otto Dal Zotto grew up in Valdobbiadene and migrated from Italy to Australia in 1967 – where he was soon drawn to the King Valley, alongside many other Italian immigrant families, to work on the region’s tobacco farms. By 1984, in his words, “the writing was on the wall – the government was going to scrap the entire tobacco production in Australia.” He and his wife, Elena, purchased a farm that year and planted wine grapes there in 1987 – initially the very un-Italian chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and merlot, owing to the limited availability of grape varieties in Australia at the time – with a family winery staffed by sons Michael and Christian following shortly after. But what seemed like a routine family chat soon turned the business in a very different direction.
“The boys asked me, ‘So, dad, what do you really want to do?’ Dal Zotto recalls. “And I said, ‘Guys, I come from an area where there is only prosecco. I grew up with a bottle of prosecco on the table.’ We were so poor we couldn’t afford a bottle of water, but we had a bottle of prosecco on the table. It was normal to us.” Dal Zotto continues: “I said, ‘I would like to plant some prosecco.’ I thought I was just saying something stupid, but they said ‘Yeah, let’s do it!’ My jaw dropped down – I said, ‘Are you crazy?’”
“We were so poor we couldn’t afford a bottle of water, but we had a bottle of prosecco on the table. It was normal to us.”
The difficulty for the Dal Zotto family wasn’t only that prosecco was barely known in Australia at the time, but also that prosecco cuttings weren’t available to purchase for planting. Dal Zotto reached out to the Yalumba nursery, who informed him that they didn’t have any – but they had heard that a backyard grower in Adelaide might have illicitly imported some prosecco vines.
“They said to me, ‘You can forget about it – we tried to get it, but he wouldn’t give a bud to anybody’,” Dal Zotto recalls. Undeterred, Dal Zotto secured the elusive backyard grower’s phone number and called him. Sensing that a direct approach wouldn’t work, Dal Zotto started talking about their shared Italian backgrounds: “We start talking about where we come from – ‘What province?’ ‘Treviso, you know, Valdobbiadene.’ I say, ‘Hey, I’m from Valdobbiadene too!’” They switched the conversation from Italian to the Veneto regional dialect – and shortly enough Dal Zotto had secured the grower’s permission for Yalumba to collect some cuttings to propagate.
After a lengthy process of DNA testing in Sydney and France to confirm the identity of the vines, as well as registering the variety with Wine Australia, by 1999 those precious cuttings were ready to plant. “My wife, Elena, was looking after those vines like they were [a gift] from God,” Dal Zotto recalls. “If you’ve got hair on your head, that would probably be thicker than the root systems.” Those first few rows developed their first fruit in 2004, and the Dal Zottos released a very small quantity of the first Australian prosecco wine – less than 2500 bottles – from that fruit in November of that year. “The volumes were very small – so small we could not make it using the Charmat method,” Dal Zotto says. “The amount was too small to fill the first and second fermentation tanks. Instead the we made the 2004 in the méthode champenoise.”
Despite the small volume produced, it was an instant success with anyone who tasted it: “We had to put a limit of two to three bottles on how much people could buy, because everyone wanted it!” Dal Zotto recalls with pride. In a short amount of time his King Valley neighbours had started to plant their own prosecco vines – and a new category of Australian wine was born.
In many ways, the blame for the current trade dispute between Australia and the European Union over the word ‘prosecco’ can be sheeted home to an unlikely figure – heiress and celebrity socialite Paris Hilton. In late 2006, not long after the first Dal Zotto prosecco was released, Hilton became the public face of Rich Prosecco – a brand of prosecco made from grapes grown in Austria, packaged into gaudy metallic gold–coloured 200 mL cans. “It’s like Italian Champagne,” Hilton said on a Late Show with David Letterman appearance to promote the brand. “It’s sexy.”
She probably did not know that this appearance – alongside a disastrous stop in Venice on the publicity tour for Rich Prosecco – was precision-calibrated to offend winemakers in the original Prosecco denominazione di origine controllata (DOC), which applied only to grapes grown in the Conegliano–Valdobbiadene hills, and forbids packaging other than glass bottles. “I really thank Paris Hilton,” prosecco maker Matteo Bisol is quoted in Jason Wilson’s book Godforsaken Grapes. “That was when everyone here realised we had a problem.”
That offence quickly catalysed into action, and within two years those winemakers, with the aid of an ambitious right wing populist politician named Luca Zaia, had hatched a novel plan to take control of the term ‘prosecco’. They saw that they could make the name a protected geographical indication (PGI) under European law – as, for example, Champagne is – via two relatively small changes to the paperwork that governs wine in Italy. The first move would be to officially re-christen the prosecco grape as ‘glera’ – a once-obscure synonym for prosecco lungo, a closely related but genetically distinct grape variety – within Italy’s official register of grape varieties. The second move would be to extend the boundaries of the existing Prosecco DOC approximately 150 kilometres to the east to encompass a village near the Slovenian border named ‘Prosecco’ – one which had no history of growing the prosecco variety, and did not produce sparkling wine. In 2009, while Zaia was the Minister for Agriculture, both changes came into effect – and with a few pen-strokes the word ‘Prosecco’ became, in theory, as sacrosanct in European Union law as ‘Champagne’.
“I really thank Paris Hilton. That was when everyone here realised we had a problem.”
The consequences of these changes within Italy were significant – especially as they came at a time when the wider world of wine consumers was discovering the charms of prosecco and demand for the variety was rising. Suddenly a much larger number of growers in less desirable viticultural areas (formerly classified as indicazione geographic tipica, or IGT) could sell their grapes to be turned into DOC Prosecco, leading to a nosedive in quality. “Overnight, they became millionaires,” Dal Zotto says of the former IGT growers. “Before that in Asolo, Conegliano, Valdobbiadene, they were getting about two euros a kilo, and the IGT, on the other side, were only getting 60 cents. But in 2009 when Luca Zaia changed everything, that 60 cents went up to two euros, too.”
The original quality-minded producers within the original Prosecco DOC were given the consolation prize of an ‘upgrade’ to the theoretically more prestigious denominazione di origine controllata e garantita (DOCG) status via the creation of four new DOCGs that covered the various subregions of the original Conegliano–Valdobbiadene area. However, the convoluted names of those new DOCGs has made their wines a hard sell to international audiences – especially as the now-expanded original DOC was becoming a marketing juggernaut. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the village Prosecco – whom Zaia had promised agricultural grants to grow glera grapes in exchange for their support of the proposal to extend the Prosecco DOC boundaries – were left high and dry after Zaia exited the Ministry for Agriculture and their grant requests were denied.
Having redefined the term prosecco within Italy, which then automatically flowed through to wider European Union law, the winemakers of Conegliano–Valdobbiadene had resolved the issue that first roused them into action. (The gaudy gold cans of Rich still exist, but are labelled as “dry secco” – and the company now also makes a DOC Prosecco, packaged in glass bottles.) The next phase of the fight would be to make the wider world follow suit – something the European Union could bring about via the mechanism of trade agreements.
Until relatively recently, Australian consumers were used to calling locally-produced wines roughly modelled on European originals by the names of those originals. Thus Australian sparkling wine was simply called ‘Champagne’, Penfold’s Grange was originally called a ‘Hermitage’, and most of the examples of ‘Sherry’ and ‘Port’ in Australian bottle shops were grown in Rutherglen or the Barossa, not Spain or Portugal. This is now no longer the case owing to diplomatic pressure from the European Union, which negotiated with the Australian Government to protect several important wine names within the Australian market in exchange for easier access to the European market for Australian winemakers. This agreement came into legal effect in 1994, and was renegotiated and expanded to automatically include all European Union PGIs in 2010.
In 2012, the European Union attempted to use the framework of this existing wine agreement with Australia to prohibit Australian producers from using the term ‘prosecco’ on their labels, arguing that most consumers worldwide consider ‘prosecco’ to be a geographical region. This argument was eventually denied by the Australian government on the basis that prosecco is, for Australian legal purposes, a variety – and that Australian makers of prosecco were at the time legally obliged to call prosecco by only that name on their labels. (This has since changed as ‘glera’ has been registered as an official synonym for prosecco with the International Organisation of Vine and Wine.) Having failed at this approach, the European Union has now made the protection of Italy’s Prosecco DOC a key sticking point on the agenda for a free trade agreement between Australia and the European Union, discussions for which commenced in 2018 and have yet to conclude.
“I can totally understand why the Italian government is pushing so hard for this change, as prosecco has become a very valuable name. But at the same time, I don’t see that they have any basis in law to be able to push it through.”
“I can totally understand why the Italian government is pushing so hard for this change, as prosecco has become a very valuable name,” says James Omond of the firm By George Legal, a leading expert in intellectual property law for the beverage industry. “But at the same time, I don’t see that they have any basis in law to be able to push it through. It may be that they can negotiate commercial terms that persuade the Australian government to accede to the change – but I would hope that is only with the full agreement of the relevant Australian producers.”
For Omond, who coauthored a submission to the Australian Government setting out a detailed legal case against the European Union position, “the problem here is that prosecco is the varietal name – other than the fairly unattractive ‘glera’. So the industry would have to not only incur the cost of coming up with a new name (that most producers can agree sounds good), and is protectable so that only Australian producers can use it – as well as the cost of putting that IP protection in place, and maintaining it over the years.” He also worries about the potential precedent that could be set: “If the Italians can do this with an internationally acknowledged grape variety name, why wouldn’t they do it again? And not just the Italians?”
The fact that Australian producers are willing to fight so hard for the right to use the term ‘prosecco’ on their labels is indicative of the importance of the variety to the Australian wine industry. Plantings of prosecco are currently booming – both inside the King and Alpine Valleys and elsewhere in Australia – with the amount harvested in Australia increasing from 2189 tonnes in 2015 to 17,437 tonnes in 2024. Prosecco is now the eighth largest white grape variety by harvest volume in Australia, just behind riesling, and is responsible for an industry worth an estimated $205 million – approximately 95% of which is currently sold to the Australian domestic market. (There are few export markets for varietally labelled Australian prosecco because countries that have recent free trade agreements with the European Union, such as New Zealand, prohibit the sale of non-DOC wines as ‘prosecco’.)
For Tennille Chalmers, whose family operates both the Chalmers grapevine nursery and the Chalmers wine label, the chief virtue of growing and making prosecco is its approachability. “One thing that prosecco will always have going for it is that there’s always room for a great affordable sparkling,” she says. “Sparkling always has a feeling of deliciousness and conviviality about it. It doesn’t have to be a celebration, but it always alludes to fun, right?”
In order to keep the price point approachable for Chalmers’s ‘Dott.’ prosecco without compromising quality, she makes a series of relatively unconventional viticultural and winemaking choices. “We pick it with machine harvesters, proudly, because guess what? It’s the fastest, best way to get grapes off as cool as possible in the coolest part of the night” – a key consideration in the hot Murray-Darling. After primary fermentation, the wine is force-carbonated on the bottling line – Chalmers describes the process as “big, grown-up, booze industry SodaStream” – to keep its relatively low ABV and freshness, rather than going through the Charmat process. “If we did Charmat, it would be anywhere between 0.6 and 1.2 degrees of alcohol more,” she says. “We’d be putting sugar in it, letting it re-ferment – and that’s going to increase the alcohol, right?”
Chalmers attributes the success of ‘Dott.’ to the viticultural versatility of prosecco, which is happy to grow in a surprising array of Australian conditions. “You can take it out of cool, kind of humid Northern Italy, and guess what? You can plonk it in the Murray-Darling, and it works.” She adds: “We have about 0% humidity – it’s as hot and dry as you can get. But it’s about picking those little berries when they’re really fresh and delicious and have got those gorgeous just-ripe aromatics.” She emphasises that one of the virtues of Australian prosecco is that, when well-made, it can challenge preconceived notions of quality and value: “You can’t say, ‘Oh, prosecco’s entry-level, there’s never going to be a great one.’ Good examples of anything will always be good – you can’t say that a category is never going to have potential.”
“You can take it out of cool, kind of humid Northern Italy, and guess what? You can plonk it in the Murray-Darling, and it works.”
For his part, Otto Dal Zotto is proud of the role he’s played as the inadvertent father of Australia’s prosecco industry. “A lot of the [King Valley] growers came in at a time where your merlot, your cabernet, your shiraz – it just went out [of fashion] and growers weren’t making any money,” he says. “They started putting prosecco in and they’re making money.” Observing the changed landscape in and around Valdobbiadene after the changes of 2009, he’s wary that a similarly disastrous prosecco gold rush could occur here. “My view is that we’ve still got to slow down, conserve, and push for quality – not quantity – all the time,” he says. “It’s easy for people to push for quantity when they see the dollar sign, but quality is the thing that takes you there, and will keep you there forever.” As long as Australia’s prosecco producers heed Dal Zotto’s words, the future for the variety in Australia looks sparkling indeed.
Our panel: Peta Baverstock, winemaker, Cuvée Co.; Prasad Patil, winemaker, Dal Zotto; Melissa Brauer, wine educator, Regina Vino and founder, The Prosecco Festival; Alex Meikle-Briggs, head sommelier, Grossi Restaurants; Iona Baker DipWSET, wine importer, Trembath & Taylor; Lilian Carter, winemaker and consultant, Vinemark; Andrew Wyse, founder, Cardwell Cellars; Kara Maisano DipWSET, Wine Director, Masani.
Patil kicked off the discussion by noting that it was rare to have the chance to taste so many Australian proseccos in a lineup. “I’ve done a few wine shows, but never tasted so many proseccos against each other. So that’s a pretty good bracket,” he said. “All of them are tasting pretty fresh – quite lively, with really nice aromatics.” Regarding the winemaking on display, he added “There’s really good work here, and a lot of input being given into making these wines.”
Maisano emphasised the importance of varietal character when assessing the lineup. “I wanted renditions that have green fruits, a little bit of peach – really clean and gorgeous, and looking young,” she said. “I still was looking for some structure on the palate … And, dare I say, that hint of residual sweetness that I think is very indicative of the prosecco style. I didn’t like the cloudy wines, or the wines that were, to me, not representative of that classic style.” Brauer concurred: “The moment I got a whiff of laundry, I was like – ‘nah’!”
For Baverstock, the wines ran the gamut from approachable to thought-provoking: “Within the spectrum that we were presented, there were some in there I would love to show to a first-time consumer – ‘This is prosecco,’” she said. “Then there were wines that I would love to show to a winemaker, because they’re a bit more challenging, a bit more of an apéritif style.”
For Wyse, one of the challenges of judging these wines is that they were divorced from their usual setting. “Proseccos aren’t the easiest wines to taste – they’re wines that are designed to drink more than taste,” he said. “Mousse can obscure complexity … when I went back to look at those wines again, some of them had quite complex palates.”
“I’d never really thought about prosecco as a wine of terroir and minerality before.”
One of the surprising features of some of the wines that Wyse found complex and interesting was a smoky type of reduction: “Something that I maybe wasn’t anticipating was the smokiness – like an agave, mezcal-type smokiness.” This opened up a discussion about terroir in prosecco amongst the panel. “I got some chalky minerality as well,” Maisano said. “I’d never really thought about prosecco as a wine of terroir and minerality before.” Brauer added: “I can’t wait to see if there’s a correlation between that smoke character and where it’s from – that’s going to be fascinating to me.”
Carter argued that while it can be intellectually stimulating to discuss how prosecco might express terroir, these wines are fundamentally about pleasure. “It is a less serious wine, and it’s a fun wine,” she says of the variety in Australia. “You can choose to make it complicated if you want to, but it’s fine to have it just as a drink.”
Brauer agreed, but added: “Just because it’s ‘just a drink’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be well-made.” She continued: “You can still be a serious winemaker and make a fun prosecco, because you’ve done something really beautiful with the fruit in the vineyard and you’re paying it the attention it deserves … just because it’s fun to drink doesn’t mean you’re not taking it seriously in the winery.” Carter added: “There’s nowhere to hide with prosecco – so getting every step quite precise is important.”
“Just because it’s fun to drink doesn't mean you’re not taking it seriously in the winery.”
For Meikle-Briggs, there’s a balance to be struck between prosecco’s fun, easy-going image and the quest for improvements in quality. “I think the way Australian prosecco is being marketed is something that’s changing,” he said. “It used to be seen – and it still is seen – as something that’s approachable, something that’s easy to drink. But there are people who are trying certain producers’ wines and realising the seriousness as well – while still within the scope of those wines being approachable at the same time. I do think it’s something that people are changing their opinions on.” He added: “People are leaning towards these wines also from an economy point of view – as an alternative to [traditional method] sparkling wine.”
The panel concluded by discussing the very thorny issue of prosecco’s role in the ongoing free trade agreement negotiations between Australia and the European Union – and whether or not Australian winemakers will soon be forbidden from using the term. “I have a feeling it’s a matter of when, not if,” Baverstock said. “I think we will eventually, through the EU trade agreement, have to.” Carter added: “I have a client that I work for that has a strong export market, so they’ve decided to try another name – and I’m like ‘No, don’t give up – stick with it!’”
For Baker, despite the froth and bubble, the issue boils down to a very simple one: “When prosecco was brought into Australia, it was prosecco – it wasn’t glera. So that’s what we have, and that’s why we call it prosecco. You can’t say, ‘I didn’t sell you prosecco, I sold you glera’ – because the cuttings were labelled prosecco. For Australia, I don’t feel that is very fair.”
Since 2000, Peta Baverstock has spent over two decades focusing on the appreciation, making and branding of sparkling wine, inspired by many generous people and great wines along the way to follow her passion and to pursue creating great Australian sparkling wines. She launched her own wine label, Cuvée Co., in November 2018, and in 2024 opened a wine retail outlet, POPO, in Penola on South Australia’s Limestone Coast.
Prasad Patil is a winemaker at Italian variety specialist Dal Zotto in Victoria’s King Valley. Prior to this role, he had worked at Ramey Family Winery in Sonoma County, California, as part of the Communicating for Agriculture Education Program (CAEP) international exchange program.
Melissa Brauer, also known as ‘The Prosecco Queen’, was born and raised in Melbourne, with a career spent in sales and marketing. With a passion for food and wine (and all things Italian), her clients inevitably became hospitality-focussed. She is the founder of Regina Vino, an importer and wholesaler of fine Italian wines, and started Melbourne’s annual Prosecco Festival in 2018 as a way to showcase the range of styles of Prosecco. She has been extolling the virtues of prosecco for the past 15 years, and returns regularly to the Veneto, Italy’s home of prosecco, as well as spending countless weekends in the King Valley in North East Victoria, the birthplace of Australian prosecco.
Alex Meikle-Briggs is the head sommelier for Grossi Restaurants. Originally from the UK, he moved to Australia in 2020. A certified sommelier with a passion for Italian wine, Alex has completed the Barolo/Barbaresco Academy Langhe Wine School. His love for Italian wine is showcased at Grossi Restaurants, where he has curated the first restaurant wine list in Oceania to dedicate a full A4 page to the lesser-known Timorasso, an indigenous Italian grape.
Iona Baker is a key account manager for leading Italian wine importer Trembath & Taylor. She is an WSET Diploma holder and has worked for lengthy stints as sommelier at both St Kilda’s Stokehouse and for the Grossi Restaurant Group.
Inspired by the production and enjoyment of good wine, Lilian Carter works to support the viability of producers and enhance the experience of consumers. Since completing her oenology studies at Adelaide University, she has been involved in all aspects of wine production with some of the most well-regarded global wine businesses and some of the best niche producers – in locations that have ranged from the established Barossa Valley to the wine frontier of Xinjiang, China. In 2015, she was invited to participate in Wine Australia’s Future Leaders Program. She is currently chair of the Victorian Wines Show Committee.
Andrew Wyse has worked as a sommelier and wine importer for ten years. He cut his teeth in the industry as a wine importer and educator with a specialisation in German and Austrian wines in Portland, Oregon, before relocating to Melbourne in 2017. In 2022 he opened Cardwell Cellars, a wine shop and bar focused on geography and wine with swiss Cartographer Martin von Wyss of vW Maps and worldwineregions.com. Today he imports wine from Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Austrian and Hungarian wines.
Kara Maisano is the Sommelier and Wine Director for Masani in Melbourne’s Italian heartland, Carlton. Maisano is a VIA Italian Wine Ambassador, Court of Master Sommeliers Advanced Sommelier, WSET Diploma holder and WSET Certified Educator. She was the Gourmet Traveller Wine Young Sommelier of the Year for 2018.
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