Conference: Prosecco hills, dream landscape
For one day we invite you for a trip to Italy, on the lands of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene to discover the Prosecco Superiore, the great sparkling wine of the Venice region.
Man-made for centuries, the Prosecco hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene form an exceptional cultural landscape classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since July 2019. On the occasion of the European Heritage Days, the Cité du Vin highlights the uniqueness of this unique landscape during a conference in the Thomas Jefferson Auditorium. The conference is webcast online and live.
In 1962, a group of 11 producers created the Consortium for the Protection of Prosecco of Conegliano Valdobbiadene, developing production rules to safeguard the quality and image of their wines. In 1969, this Consortium obtained the Denomination of Controlled Origin and in 2009 the Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin (DOCG), the highest quality recognition for Italian wines.
Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore is a sparkling wine produced exclusively on these hills, from the Glera grape variety. The appellation, composed of 15 municipalities, stands out within the much larger Prosecco production area. It takes its name from two historic villages: Conegliano, cultural capital, which saw the birth of Prosecco thanks to its school of oenology, the oldest in Italy, where the method of production of Prosecco was perfected; and Valdobbiadene, heart of production and terroir with singular beauty.
The history of the Denomination continues to this day, driven by its success on national and international markets, and it never shirks from the protection of the environment. The site was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2019 as a cultural landscape, where the work of winemakers helped create a unique scenario. The landscape is characterized by heroic viticulture, evocative views of steep slopes that alternate with softer slopes.
The uniqueness of the landscape is the most obvious aspect of a very long process of evolution involving a combination of the efforts of the winemakers, the oenological know-how and the natural properties characteristic of the terroir. Many features make almost every glass of Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore unique. The differences between the soils, between the sun exposure of the vines, between the water reserves of the vines, and between the know-how of each winegrower, mean that the tastes and aromas of the wines produced there are not always the same.
In the region, wine is a deeply rooted culture, handed down from generation to generation, and viticulture sculpts panoramas and landscapes of authentic beauty, the attraction of which is enriched by man’s artistic creations: medieval remains, hermitages, secular chapels and other traces of the rural, civic and religious history of the local populations to discover along the Prosecco road, the first Italian wine route created in 1966.
With Diego TOMASI, Director of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG Consortium.