Prosecco, extremely popular sparkling wine made in north-east Italy. Italy’s largest doc by far, the Prosecco zone now extends from the city of Vicenza to Trieste, and comprises more than 14,000 ha/34,580 acres. Extraordinarily high permitted yields of 18 tonnes/ha produced more than 300 million bottles of light sparkling white wine in 2013 made by the tank method (see sparkling winemaking). As suggested by its extent, the DOC was once an igt. To ensure that no one outside the region was able to jump on the lucrative Prosecco bandwagon, the eponymous grape variety on which the wine is based was renamed glera in 2009, and Prosecco was registered as a protected denomination of origin (DOC). This was enabled by enlarging the region many times to include the village of Prosecco in friuli, which triggered a frenzy of plantings, mostly on plains, while barring any other region or country from using the Prosecco name.
