Prosecco is a fine, usually dry, bubbly wine that goes very well with appetizer type foods—especially those they set before you during Italian happy hours. It’s a tradition here in the Lunigiana. A glass of Prosecco will cost you about €3 in a bar, and comes with a table full of little nibbles, a bargain and a delight. Prosecco is protected as a DOC within Italy, and usually comes in a bottle. Outside it’s anyone’s silly game.
For example, makers of Rich Prosecco, a company that seems to have had too much sweet, fizzy plonk on its hands, signed Paris Hilton to a contract that required her to be all painted up in gold paint (they probably had lots of volunteers for that job, I’m sure) so she could promote little cans of fizzy wine while writhing like a golden snake with an itch that couldn’t be scratched. Surely that’s gotta mesmerize folks into popping open a can of sweet bubbly while watching the tee vee or changing the oil in the ‘vette. Then all the Rich (company) has to do is to sit back and start enjoying the sweet ka-ching of the cash registers…
Well, it didn’t turn out like that. In fact, it was a disaster. According to news:lite)
Now there are said to be over 30,000 units of the canned wine sitting in a warehouse in Serbia ready to be auctioned off at bargain basement prices before their expiration date in May.
Y’all probably don’t want to start lining up just yet.
It’s not that decent prosecco can’t be put in a can, it’s just that there have been so danged many failed attempts to dumb down wine with sweetness, stuff it into a container that can be sold in gas station vending machines, and then try to sell it to folks who hate wine. You’d think companies would just give up on the whole idea. Yet they continue. Maybe they’re after a bailout. Those seem easy to get.
Yes, I bought the can of prosecco you see up there to the left at a Lidl market in Germany. It’s not Rich Prosecco, so I don’t have to worry that I’m promoting the idea of painting socialites in gold so people can point and gawk. I bought it there because I didn’t know if Italy allowed that sorta thing inside its borders. I wouldn’t.
I haven’t drunk it yet. I don’t think I will. I’ll let Martha drink it. She’ll want me to have a sip. I will cringe and do what she says.
Sono un uomo vero.
You want a taste test right now? I call upon the Winesleuth: Prosecco in a can – The video
For a more serious discussion on Prosecco and this controversy, see Italian Insight’s Paris Hilton and Prosecco in a Can!