Wine Region: Treviso

(2014) Made from the Glera grape blended with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Since 2009 rosé wines cannot be classed as Prosecco. Soft strawberry pink with lovely fresh summery fruit aromas and a touch of the floral aspect and pears again. The 14g/l dosage does give a suggestion of sweetness, making this soft and very easy to drink.

(2007) Very fresh, very appetising pear fruit. Fine floral notes, and a delicate peach down aroma. Fine, racy mousse with a beautifully sweet-edged pear fruit. The fruit is so sweet, soft and delicate that it is hard to believe this is dry until a fine, gentle and racy lemon acidity kicks in. Delightful.

(2005) In case you hadn't noticed, Prosecco, the sparkling wine (and grape name) of the north east of Italy is currently flavour of the month, with sales growing fast and the wines appearing on fashionable wine lists up and down the country. This example from Treviso-based Alessandro de Stefani has a fresh and appealing nose, where little hints of oatmeal and bread dough mingle with crisp pear and green apple. On the palate the mousse is lively and mouthfilling, and there is a nice tension between off-dry, very ripe grape and peach fruit and a fine cut of citrus acidity. Excellent party wine.

(2005) Quite open and bright with a nice fruity focus, some good fruit that develops a chocolaty richness and a nice supple ore and ends up very impressive with a lovely harmony and sweet depth.

(2004) This is a still, dry Prosecco wine, with around 5% Verdiso in the blend, normally harvested in mid-October. In 2003 Prosecco had as dry, hot, and atypical a vintage as anywhere in Europe, and the harvest was several weeks early to preserve the acidity in the fruit. Bisol also had to apply for permission to irrigate, which was done by helicopter to reach these impossibly steep slopes. Molera has a very pale colour, tinged with a touch of green. It has a fine, lemony nose, with fresh pear and pear-drop aromas, a little crunchy red apple sweetness and just a hint of honey and oatmeal. It is very crisp and clean on the palate, with more of that limpid lemony fruit, and a definite touch of residual sugar giving softness, though barely perceptible sweetness. It is very ripe, with a hint of peach-skin, downy quality. Acidity is lacking just a touch (possibly a symptom of this vintage), but it is very easy to drink and is still fresh on the finish.

(2004) This non-vintage wine is in many ways quintissential Prosecco: straw coloured and filled with gentle effervesence, and full of lively, crisp apple and sherbetty fruit.

(2004) Crede is the driest cuvee made by Bisol, from a vineyard planted on sandstone, enriched with marine fossils. It is 85% Prosecco, with 10% Pinot Bianco and 5% of the indigenous Verdiso. It is a very pale gold colour, with a steady stream of tny bubbles. There's a hint of green apple on the nose, then sherbetty, bright, pear and apple-blossom. There is also a soft, but notable herbal quality. On the palate the mouse is creamy though quite short-lived, with a soft, rolling palate of sweet pear and a core of lemony, and quite waxy fruit, leading to a dry, citrussy and very fresh and elegant finish.

(2004) Cartizze is the only Superiore "Cru" of Prosecco, a high, steep, cone shaped hill of 107 hectares, of which Bisol is the largest land-owner with three hectares. Around 40,000 bottles of this cuvée are produced. It is a very pale, almost transparent gold with a steady, vigorous stream of bubbles. It is delicate and more floral than the Crede cuvée, with lemon zest and flowery notes dominating. On the palate there is a more mineral base to this wine, with very clean, focused citrus fruit, and a decisive acidity that makes it mouthwatering and long, even though the residual sugar in this wine is higher that the Crede. This is a very elegant wine indeed.

(2004) This is the top Prosecco in the Bisol Portfolio, made from the best selected bunches, hand-picked from across Bisol's 16 vineyard sites. 14 hours cold soaking precedes a year spent in the first fermentation tanks, followed by second fermentation in tank, and release 16 months after the vintage. Around 8% of this wine is fermented in barriques. The colour is a very pale straw/yellow. There is a mass of slow-moving, very small bubbles. It has a wonderfully toasty nose, with notes of walnut, peaches and a soft autolytic yeastiness. On the palate it is full and rich, with a rolling mousse that disippates quite quickly. The palate is fine and very peachy, with a broad-based acidity that is very gentle, and a floral edge to sweet, juicy nectarine fruit. In many ways this is like a slightly more solid and serious Moscato d'Asti, with a really long finish layered with lemon and lime.

(2004) This wine is a blend of 20% Pinot Noir and 40% each of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc. Around 25% is barrique fermented. Bottled in July 1999, it was disgorged in January 2004, and 4,353 bottles were produced (now that's an informative back label!). This has a fantastic nose; it is huge and leesy, with buttery, sweet, Chardonnay-dominated aromas that are dense and full. Notes of waxy green beans, some peach, and some crisp apple aromas. On the palate it is full-bodied and has a fantastic fruit sweetness, where more of that vegetal quality is joined by a soft, strawberry flavour and emerging perfume, with a lovely cut of acidity. This is basically a soft style of wine, that gently fills the mouth, but it has excellent length and a crispness too.