How does the thin-skinned, unassuming, finicky pinot noir grape create the most expensive wines in the world? Is it the acidity? (No; they’re not any more acidic than other wines) The alcohol level? (No; they can have high alcohol levels under the right growing conditions) The light body? (No; they can be as big and oily as any cab franc)
So what’s the secret behind pinot noir’s versatility & success? Find out this week with Julien Miquel…
Transcript:
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:36:01
Hello, Buenos dias, Bongiorno, and welcome to your new Bonner Private Wines video, brought to you by the best wine club in America. Today I want to talk prosecco versus champagne, but not just how they are a bit different in taste, in flavors and aromas, not just how they are differently made, not only how they have a different price, but I want to give you, and start a discussion, a bit of an insight from a wine industry player, an expert.
00:00:36:01 – 00:01:00:01
I’ve been a wine maker for 25 years in the wine industry, even though I’m not making wine currently. But that’s a different story. I want to give you my thoughts, deep thoughts about how champagne and prosecco are very, very different products. Of course, you know a little bit why champagne is a little bit better than prosecco and it’s more expensive and it’s justified.
00:01:00:03 – 00:01:31:15
You know, a few things here and there. If you’re a wine connoisseur, you probably know quite a bit, but I really want to clarify everything for you here. So let’s get into it straight away. Basically, what I want to develop here is that prosecco and champagne are very different, but they serve the same purpose in the eye of the consumers, and therefore the wine is those who make and sell you.
00:01:31:15 – 00:02:05:06
Those products have been fooling you and the consumer. Playing on the subtle difference between prosecco and champagne that plays the same purpose. So what do I mean by this? First of all, I need to explain to you how prosecco and champagne are totally different products. Prosecco, as we know, is fairly cheap or at least affordable, while champagne is expensive. A prosecco will start around $5, a champagne, a cheap champagne, what we call a cheap champagne is going to be $40 to $50.
00:02:05:06 – 00:02:41:13
Starting. Starting price. Totally different. Why is this? Well, champagne is very expensive to produce. There are quite a lot of differences and reasons for this. Champagne is only produced, as you know, in the champagne French region of France, a little bit south east of Paris, and it is quite a small area. It’s also very cold, and the growing conditions for grapes are not that easy, and it’s quite a small area, so you can’t just expand the production massively.
00:02:41:16 – 00:03:27:00
So that’s one part of it. Secondly, champagne grapes have to be has to be hand harvested exclusively, harvested by hand. Prosecco on the other hand is generally harvested by machine. So the cost of that is totally different. Secondly the yields the maximum yields, the amount of grapes that you can produce for champagne out of one hectare, which is about three acres, is about generally 10 to 12 tonnes per hectare in champagne, 10 to 12. In Prosecco, the maximum yield is around 18, so between 30, 35, to up to nearly 50% more production.
00:03:27:00 – 00:03:52:21
So the cost of that is totally different. The prosecco growing area is also massive. It’s all around the Venetzia in the north of Italy, which is a very large valley, plane, you could call it, very flat, except some areas that have hills, but generally it’s pretty flat and you can just have the vines produce a ton, many tonnes, in fact.
00:03:52:21 – 00:04:19:08
Then champagne, as some of the main differences, has to be fully fermented within the bottle you buy it in. So it has to ferment in there and stay on the lees for a year, a year and a half in the winery. So they have to put the wine in the barrels and then store all the bottles, stack up the bottles underground for a very, very long time.
00:04:19:08 – 00:04:52:04
And that’s extremely expensive. Prosecco, on the other hand, only has to be fermented in tanks, so big stainless steel tanks. On top of that, champagne houses have to mature some of the older vintages in the winery as well. Before they can bottle it, so they have to store the wines for a very, very long time. All of this is massive cost, because you have to store wine everywhere in your winery and underground for years and years.
00:04:52:04 – 00:05:13:21
So all of that production, all of that capital that you’ve invested in, the production of grapes and fermenting the wine has to be stored for years and years. On the other hand, Prosecco only has to ferment the wine in tank and bottle it. And here they go. They can sell it to you. Those are some of the main differences in costs.
00:05:13:21 – 00:05:39:09
Champagne is a little bit like a top red wine produced in a boutique winery, where they would make really delicious grapes and fermented in small batches, and then they have to put it into barrels and then age it into barrels and then age it in the bottle a little bit before they can sell it to you. Well, Prosecco is much more like a very cheap rosé at the bottom shelf of the supermarket.
00:05:39:09 – 00:06:29:16
You buy it for $5-10 and they just produce it masses millions and millions of bottles. And that’s what it is. I mean, I guess I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it’s pretty much in principle the difference between champagne and prosecco. The cost of production is just extremely different. It has to be noted here. Very important point. Prosecco is quite unique in the world of sparkling wine because you have champagne but also the Cava in Spain, Francesco in Italy, all the trimmings from France, all the British sparkling wines, a lot of the US wines that are like super, super cheap are also bottle fermented into to ferment in bottle.
00:06:29:16 – 00:06:55:22
Well, it’s very expensive, but you have to take extreme care in extreme cost to produce it. Prosecco is essentially the only sparkling wine in the world with such success that is just fermented in tank. You would have perhaps the German sect, which is a bit on the same principle, but German sect is not exported that much. The Germans love it, but it stays in Germany, so it’s a bit of a niche product.
00:06:56:03 – 00:07:25:15
So all in all, Prosecco is a cheap bulk product. I mean, the wineries don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to bash on prosecco. The wineries make good products. Prosecco is not a bad product to taste. It actually tastes pretty good and that’s why people love it. And I personally enjoy your prosecco. It’s a bit more approachable than a champagne, but the production procedure as a former winemaking perspective and from a cost perspective is bulk stuff.
00:07:25:15 – 00:08:04:11
It’s easy to make, it’s easy to grow the grapes, it’s easy to transform. At the winery. Champagne production, on the other hand, is completely, very, very different. But the Italians have been pretty smart about it. They have segmented the quantities and the prices of their pro cycles, which different segments of quality premium prosecco. So you’re going to have the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, Treviso, and all the smaller and smaller appellations, which are indeed grown on hills on much more unfavorable terrain, which are a little bit more expensive to produce, and they are of better quality.
00:08:04:11 – 00:08:33:15
So they have given you a sense of segmentation of pricing and quality. So there are really good proseccos that are going to be 20, 30, $40, that almost sweet champagne that augments the confusion around the consumers based on those production cost. What the Italians have been able to do is go from 25 years ago, there were hardly any production of prosecco.
00:08:33:15 – 00:09:04:19
At least you couldn’t really find any prosecco outside of Italy. So I don’t know exactly how many millions of bottles they were producing back then. But you couldn’t buy a prosecco in the US or very, very hardly a 25 years ago now. The production of prosecco is way over the one of champagne. They produce over 600 million bottles of prosecco per year, while the champagne production has stayed around 300 million bottles.
00:09:04:19 – 00:09:35:09
So about half now. Prosecco surpassed champagne at around 300 million bottles per year. About ten years ago, I believe it was 15 or 16. So they’ve surpassed it and now they’ve doubled the production of champagne. That’s the success of prosecco. What the Italians have been able to do really well. Yes, of course, when you buy a bottle of prosecco, you don’t think twice about it because it’s cheap and it’s going to serve.
00:09:35:11 – 00:10:00:19
Back to my initial point. The same purpose as champagne you buy cheap. It tastes fairly good. It’s fruity, it’s approachable, approachable, but it’s going to allow you to celebrate. Bring it as a gift at a dinner party, at any celebration on New Year’s Eve. Yes, you buy and you bring a bottle of prosecco and nobody is going to blame you for it.
00:10:00:19 – 00:10:28:11
Of course, if you bring champagne a bit more prestige and they know you’ve spent a bit more money, but the celebration, the atmosphere, the happiness that Prosecco gives you is comparable to a champagne. But being a totally different, much cheaper product. On top of that, the sales of sparkling wine globally has been increasing madly, really, really strong growth for the past 20 years.
00:10:28:17 – 00:10:52:20
And prosecco mainly because they are the only ones producing for so cheap and because it’s so fruity and approachable. They’ve been surfing that wave of sparkling wine madness all around the world for 25 years, and they’ve been doing it really well. So with Prosecco, you get all the celebrations, the bubbles, the sparkling is the happiness of a sparkling wine.
00:10:52:22 – 00:11:15:23
But for a fraction of the price of champagne, no one has competed with prosecco on that same feel, not the French demand. So the Spanish demos are much more affordable than champagnes, and they are of good quality. But they harvest these by hand. They ferment in the bottle, so the cost of production is just on another level. Prosecco is king.
00:11:15:23 – 00:11:53:00
Something similar happened also to rosé, but that’s going to be discussed in a future video here, in essence, is my view, my opinion on what is Prosecco and how it’s become so iconic, so successful, so huge, so massive. Why in every supermarket carries a prosecco? Why everyone drinks prosecco. It is a good product. I enjoy Prosecco I once worked with an organic prosecco producer that had fantastic passion for their product making delicious prosecco.
00:11:53:02 – 00:12:16:22
I love prosecco but I wanted to clarify for you with you, what are the differences? So I hope after this video there’s no more confusion around those two products and now you know everything about it. Let me know what you think. Why do you enjoy Prosecco? Why do you prefer champagne? For which occasions is there any difference for you in food pairing as well?
00:12:17:01 – 00:12:31:21
I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments. See you soon in the wonderful world of wine. Cheers!
