How prosecco is made

The bubbles are made in huge steel tanks instead of in each bottle, which is why prosecco costs less than champagne.

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The short version

Prosecco is an Italian sparkling wine made mostly from the glera grape. After a first fermentation makes a still base wine, the wine goes into a sealed stainless steel pressure tank with sugar and yeast for a second fermentation. That Charmat method takes a minimum of 30 days and can run up to about nine months.

Pick the glera grapes

Prosecco grows across nine provinces in the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions. Up to 15 percent of the wine can come from other permitted varieties.

Goes in
Wine grapes
Ferment a still base wine

Pressed juice is fermented into an ordinary dry white wine with no bubbles.

Goes in
Baker's yeast
Seal it in a pressure tank

The base wine is mixed with sugar and yeast in a stainless steel pressure tank. The second fermentation traps its carbon dioxide inside the tank, so the wine turns sparkling.

30 days to about 9 months

Goes in
Sugar Baker's yeast
Chill and filter

Once the pressure is right the wine is chilled and filtered clear of yeast, still under pressure.
Bottle under pressure

The sparkling wine is filled into thick glass bottles and closed. Most is spumante, fully sparkling, and some is frizzante, lightly sparkling.

Goes in
Glass bottle

End of the lineProsecco

Worth repeating

The grape was called Prosecco until Italy renamed it Glera in 2009, and the wine takes its name from a village near Trieste.
The Charmat tank method was patented in 1895 by Federico Martinotti and improved by Eugène Charmat in 1907.
In 2019 the Prosecco hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.