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Photos By:: Adil Arora
 Paolo de Matteis Larivera is married to the fifth generation daughter of the Carpenè family that owns Carpenè-Malvolti, the premium producer in the docg area of Conegliano in Veneto. Domenico Scimone is the Global Sales and Marketing Director of the 149-year old Italian company that was established in 1868 and which revolutionised Italian wines by producing a sparkling wine using the Charmat method-popularly known as the tank method in which the second fermentation to create and capture the bubbles is done in tanks and not in the bottle.
Both visited India for the first time since Aspri Spirits started importing this Prosecco in India. Members of the Delhi Wine Club and a few special invitees had the pleasure of meeting the duo at a dinner organised at the Artusi Restaurant in Greater Kailash II, Delhi where Carpenè Malvolti Conegliano Valdobbiadene 1868  Brut Superiore DOCG Prosecco was the protagonist, served throughout the evening in an uninterrupted supply. Incidentally, keeping in line with the new Italian trend where the older wineries have been adding to the label the year it was founded, one saw the trend also in the new Carpenè Malvolti label.
Brut in a Prosecco represents the relatively dry style of bubbly with the residual sugar at 0-12 gms/liter whereas another popular style with 12-18 gms sugar is Extra Dry and equally popular in India with around 15 gms/liter as the norm. As Domenico explained, different countries where they export to, have different styles. Around 5 million bottles of bubbly are produced out of a total of 500 million bottles in the whole DOC/DOCG range of Prosecco, representing around 1% of the total production. About 1 million are docg wines-and we tasted one version-the Brut, this night.
 I tasted the bubbly for the first time in 2002, the year the Delhi Wine Club was founded. At their impressive stand in Vinitaly, I had tasted most of their range and was suitably impressed even though there was no Prosecco selling in retail anywhere in India at the time. It was quite appropriate that since the 15th year celebration of Delhi Wine Club coincided with the 15th year of my tasting this bubbly, we had the honour of organising the wine dinner in Delhi-at Artusi restaurant.
Founded in 1868 by "the father of Prosecco" Antonio Carpenè, Carpenè Malvolti was the first winery in Italy to produce Prosecco as a sparkling wine and the first to label their wine as Prosecco Brut/Extra Dry. Before this, only still wines were being made with the same grape known interchangeably as Glera (Incidentally, this grape is the same as Ribolla Gialla grown mostly in Veneto region.) Carpenè and Malvolti also set up a university specializing in making sparkling wine, close to the winery. Today, it is regarded as a premium wine education institution in Italy.
 Normally, Prosecco is considered an aperitif wine to be consumed with snacks. But the fuller concentration made the flavourful wine handle the main course as well. Arora could not resist telling the story of a friend for whose daughter’s wedding he had helped organise this premium Prosecco. People at the wedding party loved it so much that they guzzled it like champagne despite his correcting them intermittently and telling them it was not champagne but Prosecco- an Italian sparkling wine.
So how did it match with my food? I didn’t even think about it during the evening but gave a thought to the pairing only after reaching home. From the consumption pattern, it was obvious that members loved it with their food and kept on asking for the refills that were available in abundant quantity.
Prosecco can also be a celebratory drink. After the unlimited champagne brunch in January at Pullman, President Arora decided to continue with the celebrations for the 15th year with Carpenè-Malvolti Prosecco. It was great to work with the importer Aspri Spirits and Wines for this special event.
For an earlier related Article, please visit:
Prosecco Superiore is Superior to Prosecco
Subhash Arora
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