For your holiday consideration: Single-vineyard Prosecco DOCG Cartizze Vigna La Rivetta

Christmas and New Year’s Eve are right around the corner and many of you will be shopping for wines to served to your guests and loved ones.

If ever there were a time of year when you want to reach for the “very best,” it’s now. The winter holidays are meant for enjoying the best things in life. And when it comes to Prosecco DOCG, there’s no wine that reaches higher than Prosecco DOCG Cartizze — the top sub-zone for Prosecco DOCG wines.

And in the case of Villa Sandi’s Prosecco DOCG Cartizze, the wines are made quite literally from a top growing zone within the top growing zone.

As the name Prosecco Superiore DOCG Cartizze Vigna La Rivetta reveals (“La Rivetta Vineyard”), the Glera rows used to make this extraordinary wine are situated on the ridge of a “bank” (riva means bank as in river bank or the top of a slope; rivetta, the diminutive, can be translated as the little bank).

The fruit for this 100 percent Glera wine are sourced from a small ridge at the top of a slope in the heart of the Cartizze sub-zone. The slope is so steep and the parcel so isolated that all the work done there — from pruning in the winter to canopy management in the summer and harvest in the fall — has to be done by hand.

Cartizze was designated the top growing area for Prosecco DOCG because it’s steep slopes and windy hilltops offer the grower the ideal conditions for preserving the fresh aromas and flavors of the grapes: The incline of the slopes give the vines nearly perfect exposure to the sun; and the layout of the land, with the steep peaks and low min-valleys between the hills, helps to aerate and dry the vines, thus avoiding the mildew that can affect other parts of the Prosecco DOCG. The slopes also give the vines excellent drainage, making them work harder to find the water table and as a result, helping them to produce more richly flavored fruit.

So when you’re looking for the “best” Prosecco DOCG to serve this holiday season, look no further than Cartizze Vigna La Rivetta (available on in certain U.S. markets).