Lifestyle  >  A taste of Italy

For a relaxed and unpretentious wine-and-food break, forget France's Champagne region and head to Treviso, the home of Italian Prosecco. Rachael Woolston takes a wander and sips at a glass or two.

For most of the tourists that fly into Venice airport, the final destination is the City of Light itself, renowned for its canals, bridges and, of course, the Venice Carnival. Not many have yet caught on to the jewel in this region's crown, the Treviso province.

Known as the Garden of Venice, it boasts pretty Renaissance towns and Italy's oldest wine route, which winds through a rolling landscape thick with the vines of hundreds of family-owned vineyards all producing the renowned Italian fizz, Prosecco.

This strada del vino is where my father and I were going to spend three delightful days visiting just a few of the small vineyards recommended by the local tourist office, combined with sightseeing in some of the pretty towns. Arriving late one afternoon into Venice airport, it took us just under an hour to drive to our hotel, Castel Brando (www.castelbrando.it), which overlooks Valmareno in the heart of the region. After checking in, we retired to the cosy stoned-walled bar to enjoy our first glass of Prosecco, while we thoughtfully pored over a map to decide upon our route for the following day.

Prosecco is produced in a region that stretches from the town of Valdobbiadene, past the capital Treviso and Renaissance town of Conegliano, to Vittorio Veneto. For our !rst outing the next morning, we headed towards the vineyard Tenuta Contarini (www.tenutacontarini.it), near the small town of Conegliano.

The vineyard's driveway is lined with lime trees and opens into a rustic courtyard flanked by an original stone farmhouse on one side and the refurbished 19th-century villa clementina on the other. it is here that we were welcomed for a tasting, it's worth noting has 10 beautifully furnished rooms upstairs where you can choose to stay.

Having visited a fair few vineyards in France, I'd been expecting a long line of tourists all vying for a sip of wine. Not so here, where we were welcomed by the English-speaking staff and sat at a table swiftly laid with grissini to accompany the tasting of a the variety of Prosecco wines they had to offer us.

Although the wine is made from the grape native to these soils, Prosecco is now cultivated as far a!eld as Brazil and Australia, and so all the bottles from this region are marked with DOCG as a mark of its genuine origin and quality.

We tasted three varieties, Brut, Extra Dry and Dry, with Brut being the driest. All were delicious and light although the Brut had my vote. The vineyard also makes a bubbly spumante, and a frizzante which is only fermented once for a much more delicate bubble. As we sipped our way through the tasting, it became clear why many people choose to stay at agriturismo – the B&B accommodation of individual vineyards.

Food and fizz

Keen for lunch, we said our goodbyes having bought a few bottles, and headed to Ca'del Poggio (www.cadelpoggio.it), a restaurant recommended by the local tourist office. Located in the middle of nowhere, this is not a place you are likely to stumble upon and so the fact that it was busy when we arrived indicated just how good the food promised to be.

We weren't disappointed – an entrée of fresh tuna carpaccio wrapped around delicately seasoned cream cheese, and thin slices of sea bass, was followed by a second course of lobster, with lemon rind, fennel and parsley. Then it was a seafood spaghetti course, before the main event itself, sea bass baked in a sea-salt crust, which was cracked open at our table.

Of course, this being the home of Prosecco, no meal can pass without it appearing somewhere on the menu. In this region, many people enjoy it at lunch as a refreshing drink mixed with Aperol, an orange coloured liqueur similar to Campari, mixed with soda and ice. But here it was presented as a dessert, S'Groppino, which had been mixed with lemon ice cream and vodka. It was delicious, if a little sweet and a definitely too lethal to finish if you are driving. In fact, if you are coming to the area it would be wise to do so with friends so you can share the driving.

Not, of course, that this area is just about the vineyards. With its hilly terrain and acres of unspoilt countryside, it attracts walkers, horse riders and cyclists. If you prefer something more cultural, visit the capital Treviso with its canals making it seem like a mini Venice, or any one of the many beautiful medieval towns, including Vittorio Veneto with its pretty cobbled streets lined with medieval buildings and shops.

Keeping it in the family

We decided to make Vittorio Veneto our starting point the next morning – with a regular train service that takes just an hour to reach Venice, it is a great base if you want to combine your vineyard tour with a trip to the city. After a relaxed morning wandering the pretty streets, we left to explore our next vineyard, Campion (www.campionspumanti.it), a family-owned vineyard in Valdobbiadene, less than 40 minutes away.

As we turned off into the vineyards, we saw a single red rose at the end of each row of vines, a wine-growers tradition which safeguards the grapes. If anything infects the vines, the rose will wither first, giving them time to save their grapes. This is a tradition no longer used by large wine producers, but it is seen all over the region here where the majority of the 140 producers are independently or family owned, like Campion.

And this vineyard remains firmly in the family, with our tasting taken by a nephew, who told us that at harvest time they call in every member of their extended family to pick the grapes.

As we were beginning to realise, a ‘tasting' never just includes the Prosecco. By the time we had visited their cellar, the table had been set with a plate of homemade salami and cheese. Campion is one of the few producers of Cartizze, considered to be the Grand Cru of Prosecco. The grapes that go into this wine come from steep hills and were traditionally left until last as they had to be hand-picked. Like those we had already tasted, it was deliciously light with a slightly drier bite.

And so it came to the last day of our weekend and our last vineyard – Vigneto Vecio (www.vignetovecio.it), again a family affair. While the granddaughter of the vineyard's founder led us through a tasting, her father bustled off to the kitchen to prepare food for the vineyard's renowned restaurant. You must book here to avoid disappointment – and I understood why, when he insisted on showing us the kitchen where he was basting a roasting pig with Prosecco. He wouldn't let us go until we'd drank a glass of their sweet Prosecco with a plate of homemade biscuits.

One can only imagine what a dinner would be like here, but I bet it would definitely be worth parking your car up and taking a room in their guesthouse (starting from about £57 with breakfast).

We had deliberately not indulged on our last day so that we could enjoy a final evening meal at La Corte, the restaurant at the Hotel Villa Abbazia (www.hotelabbazia.it) in nearby Follina, which was recommended by the tourist office. It certainly deserved its plaudits – think Italian food and you imagine rustic, but here the little touches were everything, from the homemade cuttlefish-ink bread to a dessert of apricot sorbet and meringue with miniature mint leaves.

It was a fitting finish to a weekend packed with the tastes of Italy, both in terms of its food and wine and its people.

As we flew out of Venice the next day, I left with a heavy heart to match my stomach, but knowing I would be back. This region really does offer a perfect weekend away with outdoors activities, culture, fantastic food and, of course, the Prosecco.