Italy looking for UNESCO heritage status for its Prosecco hills

January 30, 2017

Italian Prosecco is way more than a wine: it’s a legend, a tradition, and one of the symbols of Italian enogastronomic culture.

Therefore you shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that the Belpaese wants the UNESCO heritage status for the hills producing this enormously famous wine.

The Prosecco Superiore Hills, home of the renowned sparkling wine, could in fact obtain the UNESCO world heritage status – Italy’s UNESCO committee has recently announced.

Innocente Nardi, president of the Consortium for the Protection of Prosecco, declared: “We are proud to receive this recognition because it responds to the work put into this land every day by the inhabitants, making it unique. The approval of the bid gives new value to the beauty of the area”. The Prosecco Hills are home to a wine-making school founded in 1876.

The Consortium said in a statement about the matter: "We are not just talking about 'picture-postcard' beauty, but what the UNESCO Convention identifies as a cultural landscape; a site that originates from the activities of nature and man".

The Prosecco Superiore, by the way, is not exactly as the same as Prosecco DOC. Its complete denomination is Prosecco Superiore DOCG and the wine is produced only around the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, on a total surface of 20 thousands hectares. The grapes that give birth to Prosecco Superiore are fairly similar to those used for the production of Prosecco DOC, and yet they have a very distinctive flavor, that guarantees unicity to the final product.

The bid for UNESCO candidacy was approved unanimously by the national UNESCO Committee last week, but that does not mean that the heritage status has already been obtained: in fact, the process is long and tortuous, and could take years.

In the meantime, in the land of Prosecco Superiore, the ancient art of Italian wine-making will keep producing one of the most appreciated wines in the world.

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