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Places compared

Prosecco vs Cava: the two appellations

Two inexpensive sparkling wines that are made in completely different ways.

Which to choose

Choose

Prosecco DOC

You want fresh, light, floral and easy — with an aperitif, or in a cocktail where bready complexity would be wasted.

Choose

Cava

You want the texture and savoury depth of the traditional method at a fraction of Champagne’s price. Look for Reserva or Gran Reserva.

Worth knowing

Cava is the better technical value of the two: it is made the same way as Champagne, from a longer lees ageing than the minimum, at a quarter of the price. Prosecco is not trying to be Champagne at all, and judging it against that standard misses what it is for.

Where they differ

Written rather than computed. A place has no taste profile of its own — the wines made there do, and they vary — so averaging one into existence would produce a number for every dimension and a meaning for none.

Method

Prosecco DOC

Tank method: the second fermentation happens in a pressurised tank and the wine is bottled under pressure.

Cava

Traditional method: the second fermentation happens inside the bottle, exactly as in Champagne.

What that does

Prosecco DOC

Preserves the fresh, floral primary fruit of Glera. Little contact with lees, so no bready character.

Cava

Produces autolytic character — bread, biscuit, nuts — from time on lees, which is the point of the method.

Flavour

Prosecco DOC

Green apple, pear and white blossom, with a soft frothy mousse and low alcohol.

Cava

Green apple and lemon over a distinctly earthy, faintly bitter note from Xarel·lo, with a firmer bead.

Sweetness

Prosecco DOC

Usually Brut or Extra Dry — and Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut, which catches out almost everyone.

Cava

Usually Brut, and often drier in practice than Prosecco of the same designation.

Geography

Prosecco DOC

Nine provinces of north-east Italy, defined as a place in 2009 when the grape was renamed Glera so the name could be protected.

Cava

A set of non-contiguous zones across several Spanish regions, unified by a method rather than a place.

What they share

Just as useful: knowing which parts of the choice do not matter.

Both are inexpensive, both are widely available, and both are better understood as their own thing than as cheap Champagne.

Read more

Place

Prosecco DOC

A very large appellation across nine provinces of north-east Italy — and the reason a grape had to be renamed so that a place could be protected.

Place

Cava

Spain’s traditional-method sparkling wine, and an appellation whose delimited area is scattered across several regions rather than being one place.