“The problem,” Primo Franco was saying, “is that if you visit a Michelin three-star restaurant in Italy, the wine list will have 10 pages of Champagne but not one single page of Prosecco.” He sounded exasperated, as well he might. Since 1982, when he took over the Nino Franco winery from his father, Primo Franco has probably done more than anyone to help people understand that Prosecco — specifically Prosecco Superiore from the small Conegliano Valdobbiadene region — can be a great wine, not just mass-produced industrial fizz to dump into a spritz.
When he made that comment to me, he’d just poured me his floral, complex 2017 Grave di Stecca. It comes from a small vineyard surrounding the 18th-century Villa Barberina on the outskirts of Valdobbiadene; it runs $55 a bottle, and I wouldn't advise making a spritz with it.
