Wine myths
Tank-method sparkling wine is a cheap shortcut
“Prosecco is made by a cheap method because the producers cannot afford to do it properly.”
The tank method is cheaper, and it is also the method that suits the wine. Putting Prosecco through a traditional-method second fermentation would remove the fresh pear-and-blossom character it is bought for.
The full answer
The two methods produce different wines on purpose. A traditional-method wine spends months or years on its lees, and autolysis develops the bread and brioche character those wines are prized for. A tank-method wine has short lees contact by design, so the primary fruit and floral aromatics survive into the glass.
Glera, the grape behind most Prosecco, is aromatic and delicate. The autolytic character that flatters Chardonnay and Pinot Noir would sit on top of it rather than complementing it.
The tank method is genuinely far cheaper and faster, and a great deal of inexpensive sparkling wine uses it for that reason alone. Both things are true at once: it is the economical choice and the stylistically correct one for this kind of wine.
Tank-method production is substantially cheaper, and much of the world’s least interesting sparkling wine is made this way.
Why the belief persists
Champagne’s marketing has spent a century associating its own method with quality as such, and the comparison is rarely made in the other direction.
A reading of the available evidence by people qualified to make it, where the evidence genuinely underdetermines the answer.
What would settle it: Evidence arriving that settles the question either way.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Consorzio di Tutela della Denominazione di Origine Controllata Prosecco — Consorzio Prosecco DOC
- WSET educational materials and the Systematic Approach to Tasting — Wine & Spirit Education Trust
- The Oxford Companion to Wine — Oxford University Press