I was chat­ting with a few friends from the Indie Beauty Net­work last night, Regina from Dr. Flower, Lisa from Cac­tus & Ivy and Marla from Back Porch Soap. Some­how the con­ver­sa­tion came around to Pros­ecco. And what actu­ally is it? Don’t ask how we came around to this thought pro­vok­ing ques­tion, it is a “had to be there” sit­u­a­tion. I never thought  “EVERYONE knows what Pros­ecco is,” rather, I thought, ” how can I make sure that every­one does?”

So here we are, once again, me enlight­en­ing you, my dear read­ers, to fur­ther joys of Italia! I am only happy to do it.

I myself , at one time,  was part of the Pros­ecco Igno­rati; those igno­rant or unaware of the this divine nec­tar.

About 10 years go, I was on hol­i­day in Italy with my sis­ter. I think on hol­i­day sounds so much more cos­mopoli­tan than on vaca­tion. We had just spent sev­eral days in Venice, which was lovely and quiet in an after-the-canals-flood, bitter-cold kind of way. A city of great beauty and mys­tery, but  alas, not great cui­sine, at least for us. Since this trip, my sis­ter has gone back and found sev­eral won­der­ful restaurants..but that is her, lets get back to me. Ahem. I was dying to get to Flo­rence. My sis­ter had never been and I was anx­ious for her to adore it as much as I did.

Upon arriv­ing in the city cen­ter of Flo­rence and wan­der­ing out for our first walk, my sis­ter was struck about how noisy and fast paced it was com­pared to Venice. Well yes, Ves­pas (Ital­ian scoot­ers named after wasps), do travel a bit faster than lets say, a gon­dola. But, she was right, it was a stark con­trast. I was hop­ing she would over­come her first impres­sion and still fall in love with the city-village. My wor­ries were soon put to rest.

That night we went to a lit­tle restau­rant my sis­ter had found in Fodor’s travel guide. It was called La Gios­tra (Ital­ian for carousel) and owned by a Haps­burg prince who was also the chef. It got rave reviews and sounded charm­ing. It was. It is. It has since become my all time favorite restau­rant. I have taken numer­ous peo­ple there and told any­one I could about it. I would say that La Gios­tra alone is worth the trip to Flo­rence, but come on, it’s FLORENCE, that would be a bit of an exag­ger­a­tion, even for me.

After a long day of travel and tour­ing we arrived for our reser­va­tion at 7pm. This is early in Italy. 8 to 8:30pm was the more reg­u­lar hour for din­ner. With the Italian’s pen­chant for a gelato break at about 5pm, it was easy to wait that long. My sis­ter and I, how­ever, were starving.

Nelum, our lovely waitress

Greeted at the door by the lovely and charm­ing Nelum, “ahhh, the Amer­i­canas”, we were seated beneath glit­ter­ing pixie lights that cov­ered the ceil­ing and each pre­sented with a glass of, what we thought was, Cham­pagne. Com­pli­ments of the house, she said, as was the first plate of antipasti she brought out.

Wow, Cham­pagne before din­ner? Hmmm, we tried not to act like that was any­thing new. Nelum went through each item on the menu. I ordered the Taglierini con tartufi bianchi (white truf­fle pasta), my sis­ter had the Chilean Sea Bass (Chilean Sea Bass). Need­less to say, white truf­fle pasta is now my all time favorite dish, isn’t that just like a diva?

I have been back so many times, that Nelum brings out the Chef-Prince to slice more white truf­fles onto my pasta. I am in heaven at that moment. And really , who wouldn’t be, white truf­fles at hun­dreds of dol­lars an ounce, sliced onto my plate by a PRINCE! That is the Sweet Life!

We fin­ished off the meal with their Tiramisu-su-su, which was yummy. Every restau­rant has their own ver­sion. It is not always a cake-like slice as we usu­ally find State­side. La Giostra’s is a creamy mas­car­pone con­coc­tion spooned over ladyfin­gers, soaked in Vin Santo (Holy Wine) and espresso. Pow­er­ful stuff.

We returned to this restau­rant 3 nights in a row and it remains one of mine and my sister’s fond­est and enjoy­able experiences.

This post is really about Pros­ecco, no? Or did you for­get? It is easy to for­get a lot of things in the romance of Italy. That is exactly the rea­son I wanted to share this expe­ri­ence with you. Such a sim­ple ges­ture, Cham­pagne before a meal…only it wasn’t Cham­pagne, it was Pros­ecco. Cham­pagne is made from grapes grown in the Cham­pagne region of France. It is highly reg­u­lated in order to pre­serve the value of the region.

Pros­ecco is made from grapes grown in the Veneto region of Italy. Cham­pagne and Pros­ecco are both Sparkling Wines. It is the most sim­plest to say that Pros­ecco is the Ital­ian Cham­pagne (sorry France), but that would really be doing Cham­pagne a dis­ser­vice. Pros­ecco is the laid back Ital­ian cousin. Both are served as apéri­tifs (before din­ner, cleans­ing your taste palate), both are used for cel­e­bra­tion, both used in mixed drinks, both can be cheap or expensive.

The dif­fer­ence to me is that I think you can get a bet­ter tast­ing inex­pen­sive Pros­ecco than Cham­pagne. Also, Pros­ecco is not as com­pli­cated as Cham­pagne. It is dry, crisp, fresh, light and well, sim­ple. It does not fer­ment in the bot­tle like Cham­pagne. It is bet­ter to drink it while it is young, 2 years and under.

Pros­ecco was the first ingre­di­ent in Bellini’s before Cham­pagne became the norm. That makes sense, Bellini’s are Ital­ian. They were invented by Cipri­ani at Harry’s Bar in Venice, which by the way, my sis­ter and I did peek into. I only wish wish we had known to stop in for a Bellini– I sure it would have been the best!

Pros­ecco has been enjoy­ing a wave of pop­u­lar­ity lately in the United States. I find it to be an unex­pected and more afford­able, qual­ity alter­na­tive to Champagne.

You may even find that you will be say­ing Pros­ecco Per Favore, Cham­pagne, non grazié. Why not ring in the New Year with Pros­ecco and as the Ital­ians say, Felice Anno Nuovo!

Happy New Year, My Sweet Divas.