Italy's finest traditional-method sparkling wine, made on the glacial moraine hills around Lake Iseo in Lombardy. Franciacorta uses the same grapes and method as Champagne — Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, a second fermentation in bottle, long lees-ageing — and holds itself to some of the strictest rules in Italy.
The result is a fizz of real finesse: creamy, precise and biscuity, the serious rival to Champagne that Prosecco was never meant to be. A modern invention, born only in the 1960s, it has made this corner of wealthy Lombardy synonymous with Italy's most sophisticated bubbles.