Ten inspiring reasons why you shouldn’t be

Prosecco is such a versatile wine! It isn’t so expensive that you couldn’t justify a glass to relax with after a tough day at work or sacrifice a little to add to your food to enhance your dining experience, but you can still enjoy that decadent moment when you pop the cork – whether you’re celebrating or not.

With Christmas rocketing towards us, many Prosecco fans are beginning to think about organising parties and considering how many bottles they will need to keep friends and family topped up when they visit.

Prosecco can complement so many different types of food and is actually great as a cooking ingredient as well. The general idea behind this article is to highlight some of the ways Prosecco can be enjoyed, not just as an aperitif but also in some cocktail and food recipes which would add a WOW factor to any party. So, without further ado, let’s have some fun with Prosecco.  

1) Christmas Prosecco

Prosecco is the ultimate Christmas fizz. It’s a light, fruity sparkling wine which certainly provides the perfect feeling of decadence that we all look forward to during our Christmas celebrations, but what makes it so perfect for Christmas is the price.

You may be expecting  quite a few guests over the Christmas period or you may be doing quite a lot of relaxing. Opening a bottle of Champagne every time someone arrives might get a tad expensive and Champagne isn’t to everyone’s taste. At Premier Estates Wine, we have yet to meet a wine drinker who doesn’t like our multi award winning Prosecco and at just £47.94 for a case of 6 bottles you’re not going to break the bank when finances are already squeezed at this time of year, and, more importantly, you won’t run out!

2) Prosecco Cocktails

You don’t really need to be celebrating anything in particular to treat yourself to a Prosecco cocktail. They’re so easy to make and just the perfect reward to relax with at the end of a hard working day. Check out our Prosecco cocktails page for recipes and inspiration. You’ll find Prosecco Margaritas, Sangria, Bellinis and loads more. Check back regularly to see our recipe updates and if you have a personal favourite that isn’t on our list, we’d love to hear from you.

3) Prosecco Risotto

This very popular, typically Italian rice dish can be further enhanced by adding Prosecco! We made a video showing you just how to make this simple and incredibly tasty dish, which you can view by following this link.

4) Salmon or Scallops With Prosecco Sauce

While we’re on the subject of main courses, if you’re guests would like a subtle, gently flavoured seafood meal, why not jolly things up a bit with a Prosecco sauce? These recipes were a real hit with our team so if they sound like winners to you, take a look at our recipe and cooking method for the salmon dish here and for the scallops with Prosecco sauce, click here.

5) Prosecco Jellies

Right. Let's move on to the desserts. Strawberry Prosecco jellies are simple to make and are a great low calorie, light dessert to follow the, often quite heavy, traditional Christmas Fayre. The trick when making jellies with alcohol content is to make sure that they are very well chilled. Make them a day ahead for the best results.

Watch our Prosecco-Raspberry Jelly making video here for a great, simple-to-follow recipe.

6) Prosecco Cupcakes

If you like baking cupcakes and you like Prosecco, well, you’re in for a treat. Yes! You can make Prosecco cupcakes. This recipe should make a dozen cupcakes:

For the cake mixture, you will need:

175g of unsalted butter

175g of caster sugar

2 medium/large eggs

175g of self raising flour

2tbsp of Premier Estates Prosecco

For the filling/topping:

A dozen juicy strawberries

150ml of Prosecco

375g of Icing sugar

150g of unsalted butter

1 tsp of vanilla essence

2 tbsp of milk

The method:

Preheat your oven to 180ºc/160ºc fan and pop cases into a tray for 12 cupcakes.

Mix the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs separately with a tablespoon of flour for each and beat well. Fold in the rest of the flour and then stir in the Prosecco so that the mixture has a smooth dropping consistency. Each cupcake case should be about 2/3 full.

Bake in the oven for about 25 mins until the cakes are nicely risen. Remove the cakes from the tin when they’re done and let them cool on in their cases.

Pop the strawberries in the Prosecco and leave them there whilst you make the icing by whisking the butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and milk together until smooth. The longer you whisk for, the softer and lighter the icing will be.

When the cakes are cool push a strawberry into the top of each one then spread your topping onto each cupcake. Simple!

7) Mini Prosecco Bottles

 Ever since we launched our 20cl mini Prosecco bottles a few years ago, they have proved to be a major hit. When you fancy a glass of your favourite sparkler but you don’t want to open a large bottle only to leave it in the fridge to go past its best, a mini Prosecco is perfect. They are also great for parties as you can pack them into an ice trough and your guests can help themselves when they need a top up. The handy screw caps mean that no-one has to struggle with popping a cork and you don’t end up wasting any Prosecco.

8) Prosecco Ice-cream

Once again, the team at Premier Estates Wine have been experimenting with Prosecco recipes and have managed to come up with a real winner if you’re an ice-cream fan. Take a look at our recipe and method here.

This is perfect if you’re expecting guests and you’d like to offer them something a little different for dessert that will cater for most tastes and is really simple and quick to make. As long as you do it the day before that is, it needs to freeze!

If you feel like making a slightly more elaborate Prosecco ice-cream dessert how about a Prosecco Sundae Cocktail? We made some of those too! Take a look at the video by clicking here.

9) Prosecco Truffles

Prosecco + Chocolate. What’s not to like? If you have a sweet tooth and you love combining the two pleasures of drinking Prosecco and eating chocolate, read on:

You will need:

150ml of double cream

25g of unsalted butter

100g of dark chocolate, chopped small pieces

50g of milk chocolate, again, chopped into small pieces

50ml of Premier Estates Prosecco

For the truffle coating, you will need 150g of milk chocolate and some icing sugar for dusting the finished truffle.

The method:

Gently heat  the cream and butter in a saucepan until the butter melts and the mixture begins to simmer. Add all of the chocolate to a heatproof bowl and then pour in the hot cream/butter. Allow it to sit for a couple of minutes and then stir until the chocolate melts into it, then you can add in the Prosecco. Pop the mixture into the fridge for about 4 to 5 hours or overnight if possible.

Put foil onto your baking tray and then pipe the mixture into about 25 small ball shapes. Freeze these for 1 hour or until you need to  serve them. Put the coating chocolate into a heatproof bowl and warm it in the microwave until it melts. Heating in 30 second intervals and stirring in between is best so as not to overheat the chocolate. You could also put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to more gently melt the chocolate. Put a truffle from the freezer into the melted chocolate and turn it with a spoon to coat it, then put it back onto the tray. Do the same for all the truffles. The coating will set after 5-10 minutess.

You can then roll the truffle around in icing sugar to coat them. Pop them into boxes or on a plate for your lucky guests.

10) Pink Prosecco Punch

The Premier Estates Wine team attend all sorts of food and drink shows all over the UK, all year round and at many of these shows visitors ask us whether we do a “Pink Prosecco”. Now, technically there’s no such thing as a pink Prosecco because the Glera grape which is used to make authentic Prosecco, is a white grape. We do, however, have a sparkling Grand Rosé in our wine range which is one of our best-selling wines and yet another award winner having recently won a commendation at the International Wine Challenge. It’s a light, fragrant sparkler with just the right level of sweetness over dryness and it’s just perfect for using to make a Punch that will WOW your guests.

Here’s the recipe and accompanying video so get ready to enjoy our Pink Prosecco Punch.

So, there they are! Ten reasons why Prosecco should definitely be at the top of your priority list for your Christmas celebrations. We hope you’ll be inspired by our recipes and, more importantly, we hope your Christmas celebrations have that extra bit of sparkle that you can only really get from Prosecco. Click here to buy your Christmas Prosecco now.