Champagne Flattened by $22 Sparklers From Italy’s Franciacorta

Don’t dare call the wines of Franciacorta “spumante,” the semi-sweet bubblies from Asti. And don’t confuse them with Champagne, even though Franciacorta sparklers are made with the same methode champenoise. Nor should you try to trace their history back to the Renaissance, the way those Tuscan wine aristocrats flaunt their pedigrees.

On the contrary, the wine makers of Franciacorta, in eastern Lombardy, are proud that they are giovanni-come-latelies to the Italian wine boom. For while wine has been made at local monasteries for centuries, not until the 1960s did it occur to anyone to make sparkling wines in the region.