Saturday, 11 August 2018

13 August: National Prosecco Day

Today is National Prosecco Day - so here are some things you might not know about this popular drink.


Prosecco
  1. What is it? It's a sparkling wine from Italy. The main difference between Prosecco and Champagne is that the latter is made in France and the former in Northern Italy.
  2. This wine was first produced in a village called Prosecco, a suburb of Trieste. The word comes from the Slovenian word, prozek, which means “a path through the woods”.
  3. The Grape it is mostly made from is called Glera. This grape was grown in Ancient Rome and was mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his writings. He was writing about Julia Augusta, who had lived to the age of 86, and said the secret of her long life was drinking Prosecco. It can, however, also be made with a variety of other grapes, like Perera, Bianchetta, Verdiso, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Noir.
  4. When choosing Prosecco, you have a choice as to the level of bubbliness. The measure of how bubbly a wine is is called perlage, and Prosecco has three levels to choose from – spumante, frizzante and tranquillo. Spumante is extra fizzy, frizzante is medium fizzy and tranquillo isn't fizzy at all.
  5. Yes, there is such a thing as still Prosecco. In fact, until the 19th century that was the only perlage it came in. Then, a wine maker called Antonio Carpenè tried fermenting it a second time.
  6. Prosecco is fermented for the second time in large tanks and not in the bottle. This is known as the “charmat” method, which has a number of advantages. It is more efficient, which is why it's cheaper than champagne; there is less contact with yeast sediment (although extra can be added if the winemaker particularly wants to create a particular flavour profile. It also means the pressure inside the bottle is lower.
  7. The average alcohol content is 11-12%, so it's a light Wine.
  8. The flavour is described as “fruity notes of yellow ApplePear, white Peach and Apricot, and a simple taste based on primary aromas.”
  9. The most famous cocktail made with Prosecco is the Bellini, first made at Harry's Bar in Venice in 1948, by adding Prosecco to peach puree.
  10. It has skyrocketed in popularity. In the UK, 5.5 million nine litre crates were drunk in 2016 – but we've a way to go before we catch up with Italy, where they drank 9.45 million. In fact, UK suppliers almost ran out of it that year. In fact, Prosecco is outselling champagne. According to the Sparkling Wine Observatory, in 2013, 307 million bottles of Prosecco were sold. Champagne sold 304 million.

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Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

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