Prosecco Jelly Bites

Don't boil the prosecco or it loses effervescence and becomes flat. Work quickly once gelatin is added. Silicone molds make for easy unmolding.

These sparkling wine jellies sit at the intersection of two traditions: the Italian prosecco heritage of northeastern Italy, and the very American tradition of alcohol-set gelatin at a party. Prosecco takes its name from the village of Prosecco near Trieste, and the first written evidence of the wine appears in a 1593 travel notebook by Fynes Moryson, who praised it alongside Vernaccia and Moscato as one of the notable wines of the Italian peninsula. By 1754 the scholar Aureliano Acanti was writing that Prosecco was so fine he would not exchange it for the ambrosia of the gods. The modern sparkling version took shape in the 19th century: Italy's first School of Winemaking opened in Conegliano in 1876, establishing the production techniques that define prosecco today. The wine received its Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) designation in 1969 and was elevated to DOCG — the highest Italian quality classification — in 2009, when the name was also legally restricted to wines made from Glera grapes in the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions of northeast Italy. By 2018, approximately 600 million bottles were produced annually. The tradition of setting alcohol in gelatin is separately American, originating from Victorian-era fruit jellies, and gaining its party-snack reputation from the jello shot culture that developed in the mid-20th century United States. Prosecco jelly bites emerged in the 2010s as a more elegant evolution of that concept — swapping neon cocktail mixes for Italian sparkling wine, and party cups for individual silicone moulds.