Prosecco Rose' got the green light, will we be getting any?

It is official now, the Prosecco Rose’ appellation will be hitting the shelves very soon, sometime in 2020. From the 2019 vintage, rose’ sparkling wine produced in the Prosecco region can be labelled as Prosecco Rose’, will Italyabroad.com be getting any? I don’t know, we will certainly not be getting a prosecco rose’ only for the label, we already have several sparkling rose’, classic and Martinotti or Charmat method that could be called “Prosecco Rose” if it wasn’t for the region they come from and the grapes they are made with, but we will certainly not be rushing to buy any Prosecco rose’. We may or may not in the future, it will all depend on whether we will find a good one, a good Prosecco rose’, but it is not on our Christmas list, so if it happens, it will be a pleasant incident. We never bought a wine because of its appellation or name and never will, from appassimento style wine to Pinot grigio, we never put marketing before content.

I personally don’t believe in the appellation, and I don’t see it as ultimately benefiting consumers, wine drinkers. Consumers will end up exactly as they are now when buying a normal Prosecco, being faced by dozens of bottles next to each other, starting from £4.99, with plenty of bad ones and very few good ones, all with the same name on the label.

Prosecco rose’ is nothing new except for the name. All prosecco producers were already producing a sparkling rose’, mainly called “Spumante rose’”, and spumante, as you may know, is Italian for “sparkling wine” - the word “spumante” is found on all sparkling wines’ labels, on the back. What I find interesting about the new appellation is the addition of the “pinot nero” to the Glera grape. Until now the majority of spumante rose’ produced in the area were made with Glera and Raboso, a native red grape variety. Pinot nero is mainly used for classic method sparkling wines, and for that reason, could give Prosecco rose’ the extra kick it needs, but there are already plenty of sparkling rose’ containing Pinot nero or made entirely with it, in Italy and all over the world, so Prosecco rose’ could be too little too late and the higher the content of Pinot Nero, the more expensive the wine will be.

As soon as life goes back to some sort of normality, I expect plenty of marketing campaigns on the new appellation, with the wine starting to hit supermarkets’ shelves. Whether it will be a success or not, it will be down to consumers, the wine drinkers. Sparkling rose’ is already a best seller, the consumption is there, it is whether wine drinkers will switch from their favourite sparkling rose’ to the Prosecco Rose’. Prosecco itself, if looking at the last couple of years, has seen its sales declining and I see the Prosecco Rose’ as an attempt from producers to add some sparkle to a declining brand, whether it will be a success and have an impact on the Prosecco sales, only time will tell.

Personally, I see the Prosecco rose’ as a too little to late attempt to revive the appellation, the brand - by trying to cover any gap in the sparkling wine market with a Prosecco label will not succeed, will make the decline faster.