Glera

The variety was renamed from Prosecco to Glera in 2009 precisely so that "Prosecco" could be protected as a place name rather than a grape name — a deliberate regulatory manoeuvre.

Glera is low in acidity and aromatically gentle, which suits the tank (Charmat) method: a second fermentation in a pressurised tank preserves fresh primary fruit rather than developing the bready autolytic character of bottle-fermented sparkling wine.

That difference in method, not in quality of grape, is the fundamental reason Prosecco tastes nothing like Champagne.

Glera was called Prosecco until 2009, when Italy renamed the variety and redefined Prosecco as a protected place name. The reason is legal rather than botanical: a varietal name cannot be protected under EU law, so anyone anywhere could plant it and use the name.

That makes it the clearest available answer to "is Prosecco a grape?" — it was until 2009, and is not now.

The variety is neutral, high-yielding and floral, with green apple, pear and white-blossom aromatics and low-to-moderate acidity. Those are exactly the qualities the tank method preserves and the traditional method would bury under autolytic character.

It is almost never made as a still wine, and the few examples that exist explain why: without bubbles there is very little there.

The steep hills of Conegliano Valdobbiadene, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2019, produce a markedly better wine than the flat land of the wider DOC, and the sub-zone of Cartizze is the most highly regarded of all.