Fiona Sims plans the ideal way to spend 24 hours in Prosecco, including local markets to visit, Prosecco tasting and local cuisine.
Morning
Feast on delectable homemade wild herb and cheese pie after a morning swim at Villa Barberina. Drop by a local market (there’s one for every day of the week here) and stock up on the local sopressa – an aged salami – before an arranged visit to Nino Franco (www.ninofranco.it) to try its singlevineyard Proseccos. Then work up an appetite for lunch with a steep climb up the hill to San Floriano church to get the lay of the land.
Lunch
Take a drive to the other side of town to dine at Trattoria Alla Cima, with its open-fire cooking and melt-in-the-mouth beef tagliata, washed down with the region’s little-known reds. That’s after a plate of casatella: cheese-stuffed tortelli paired with brut Prosecco. For something a little more creative, head to Salis and its all-Prosecco list with its matching, soufflé-like sformatino with wild herbs, followed by nettle-stuffed guinea fowl.
Afternoon
Visit Valdobbiadene-based boutique winery Fasol e Menin (www.fasolmenin.it) and sample its Prosecco col fondo wines made by the traditional fermentation-in-the-bottle process, lees and all. Then stop and gaze out over the vertiginous, hallowed Cartizze vineyard, before motoring on higher still to Follina.
Evening and overnight
It’s a 20-minute drive from Cartizze to Follina, where you can lay your head and scoff smart nosh at the wonderfully quirky, family-run Hotel Villa Abbazia. This boasts a full-on tearoom, and a Michelin one-star restaurant, complete with Prosecco-heavy wine list. Leave enough time to visit the famous cloistered Cistercian abbey opposite.