What’s The Difference Between Champagne and Prosecco

by Bottle Barn The Best Place to Buy Wine in Sonoma County

When you’re standing in the wine aisle at your local store, or when you want to buy wine online, you might have noticed the plethora of sparkling wine options available.

To understand the difference between these two types of sparkling wine, we first need to know how they’re made.

What is Champagne, Prosecco and Methods of Production?

Champagne is a type of French Sparkling wine only made in the Champagne region of France when conforming to certain regulations specified by law. This particular area sits about 90 miles northeast of Paris, France. It's possible to trace how much money these pricey bottles cost back to the intricacies of their production process—it goes without saying that quality increases with price here. It's not just the name Champagne itself that has legal protection, nor is using the term Méthode Champenoise (Champagne Method)—a lengthy and complex process—allowed without express permission. However, if producers choose to follow this method themselves then they are permitted to label their products Traditional Method.

Let's take a brief look at how the Champagne production process works and why it's so distinctive.

Following primary fermentation, an assembly of wine is produced, then blending wines from different grape varieties, vineyards, and vintages to create the house style.

Most of Champagne is non-vintage, which means it is a combination of wines from several vintages. This permits each Champagne house to keep its distinct flavor profile and attributes. When grape quality is extraordinary, wine prepared with these flawless grapes is offered as limited-edition vintage Champagnes, which can age in the bottle for decades longer than conventional nonvintage Champagnes.

After this process, Liqueur de Tirage (a liquid solution of yeast, wine, and sugar) is added to the still base wine to initiate the secondary fermentation process in the bottle. As a result, depending on how much sugar is added during the second fermentation, wines might be exceedingly dry or just mildly sweet. When remuage or riddling bottles, it twists and spins them till they slowly return full circle to where they began. This is normally done by hand or with a machine and takes around a week when done with machines and two to three months when done manually.

Next comes filtering out the remaining refuse from the secondary fermentation process. that great big blob of yeast residue on the bottom of the bottle.

So, what's the difference between the two? To sum up, Champagne is made using the traditional method, this gives Champagne its signature bubbles. However, Prosecco is made using the tank method, which means that the wine undergoes a second fermentation in a tank. This makes Prosecco less bubbly than Champagne.

Prosecco vs Champagne: Regions and Grapes

So, we already know about the region of Champagne, and there are three types of grapes often used in producing Champagne wines—Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier - but what about Prosecco? So, when it comes to Prosecco, Valdobbiadene and Conegliano are home to some of the best sparkling wines in Italy and all are produced from the Glera grape, which is originally Slovenian.

Flavor Profiles

As you see, Champagne is produced by using the traditional method, it creates spiced apple, pear, yeast, and nutty flavors with a creamy taste.

Prosecco gets their bubbles from an easy process called Charmat, but also it is a little bit fruit forward than Champagne, with intense aromas of pear, green apple, peach, and some melon.

As tasty as they may be, these types of wine do not qualify for the name Champagne because of how or where they were made. In that way, not all sparkling wine is Champagne - only those qualified under certain guidelines can be considered so.

If you are interested in learning about other methods for producing sparkling wines, we highly recommend checking out our article on the crémant method here.