The sun shone. “Is this your first nibble with an Italian lady? Do you like a good nibble? Venetians go in for a lot of nibbling. The Sbecotando is a great tradition. We all should have more nibbles.”

“This is the path to happiness here,” said a passer-by pointing to his mouth. He waved his flute at me. “La nostra via (Our way)!” We continued on ours.

Every summer, Combai – located in the Treviso region of Italy, one hour north of Venice – holds its annual nibble and Prosecco-thon. Four hundred walkers, enthusiastic drinkers and obsessive compulsive nibblers proceed through the hills, chestnut woods and steep vineyards above town, stopping every mile to refuel and refresh themselves with enormous amounts of chilled sparkling wine and regional finger food.

The region is home to some of the oldest winemakers in Italy.The region is home to some of the oldest winemakers in Italy.

It’s an exercise in gluttony, geography, gastronomy, botany and viticulture. An education in all things Italian. The Italians like to take on liquids, whether water, wine or olive oil.

At the usual wine tastings and on all the ordinary winery tours, you get all the quality assurance stuff – the riddling and raisining spiel, the residual sugar waffle and the narcoleptic cryo-fermentation autoclave tank guff. You also get talked through the secondary Charmat method (a process for making sparkling wine-making) in lengthy, neuralgic detail. All this, before you are allowed to taste a thing.

Which is all very dull and dry. But an Italian Sbecotando (which is Venetian for nibbling while you walk) is far from dry. It is a lesson in lifestyle.

I met a man from Peterborough, the UK, who began talking about his fine head and slender body and then aimed an aria at me. “Prosecco accounts for my sparkling vitality and youthful appearance,” he smiled. His family are major producers.

Veneto vineyardsVeneto vineyards

“Prosecco is named after a village near Trieste. But we also make great Passito dessert wine. Mozart mentions our Marze-mino in Don Giovanni.” He cleared his throat.

“Versa il vino (Pour the wine)! Eccellente Marzemino!” The wine party continued around us. We walked on uphill, building up a thirst. It was slaked half an hour on.

“Fancy some tranquillo?” asked a young man in a straw trilby. He poured me a glass of still Verdiso into my tasting glass. He offered me a sliver of creamy Castellata cheese, praising the digestibilty of its microbial population.

We came to a clearing and found the Boro Colmellere, a medieval farmhouse complete with outside bread oven. “Welcome to the land of bubbles,” said a young man at the next filling station. He filled up my glass, which I was carrying in a bag around my neck. He poured me a piccolo. Or small one. I had three of them.

Some 79 million bottles are produced every year and 47 per cent of total production is exported

Then he gave me egg and anchovy crostini. The next stop, it was ciachettos of tomato and salami. And more of the sparkling stuff. Before us were the Treviso hills, the pre-Alps, with the Dolomites in the distance.

The Combai Sbecotando must be the only walk which starts and ends at a ballroom. It all started seven years ago. The waiters waiting for you in the woods are pro loco volunteers, promoting the traditions, food, legends, art, history and culture of various municipalities in the area. Rive Vive, Canevando and Divine Colli have similar nibbling and swigging experiences. It’s a walk back into the history of the Marca Treviso.

The view from the Prosecco highway.The view from the Prosecco highway.

We joined the Strada de la Fan, a road built during World War I by Austrian engineers to transport guns over the River Piave. The fan is a derivative of fame or hunger – thus named because of the hunger people suffered during its construction.

We walked through vineyards of Glera and Verdiso grapes. And then we came to the Colle Ronc viewpoint, where a hand materialised. With a bottle.

“One for the shade,” said another young man in a boater, handing me an ombra of fizzy Superiore DOCG Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, the highest classification for Italian wines. We looked out over the hay barns and steep, ancient, south-facing vineyards and drank. He topped me up and we admired the wine’s perlage – that is its rising pearls.

He waxed lyrical about the properties of his wine. “Good prosecco is good for hypertension. This wine is guaranteed to be good. It comes from my field and it is hand-harvested, straight from the garden of Venice.”

Then he offered me a mouthful of his spiedini, Venetian kebabs.

From May to August the Prosecco region hosts 16 weekend wine shows and al fresco BBQs, allowing you to meet local wine growers and connoisseurs.

And, generally, to talk a lot of bollicine, or bubbles. When it comes to Prosecco, you are forever imbibing bubbles.

The Valdobbiadene vineyards.The Valdobbiadene vineyards.

Combai is on the Prosecco Road, Italy’s oldest wine route. It is 60km long and connects you with 120 wine producers. Like Andrea Miotto in Vittorio Veneto, who graduated from the world’s oldest wine school in Conegliano, the hub of Prosecco world. The school was founded in 1876.

At the municipality’s wine show in the 15th-century Todesco Palace, lady sommelier Monia Zanete did the honours. We listened appreciatively as she popped. We nosed. Andrea detected intense peach and almond primary aromatics. I struggled with pronouncing Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, which is where all the best Prosecco comes from. The Grand Cru is Cartizze.

“Prosecco is often mislabelled,” said Andre who studied winemaking in New Zealand. “Spumante has negative connections and people think that, as an easy drinking wine, Prosecco must also be a minor wine. Just sparkling, supermarket plonk. A cheap Champagne alternative.

“In fact, it outsells Champagne in the UK, but it is not respected. Because it is used in Kirs, Spritzers and Bellinis. People believe that being popular it can’t be good. And that, drunk so young, it can’t have a history. But it does. Some families have worked with the Glera grape in the Marca Treviso since 1600.”

Between Venice and the Dolomites you quickly learn the difference between frizzante (sparkling) and tranquillo (still). And how to tell a Gregoletto from a Cornetto.

The Strada del Vino takes wine tourists past Palladian villas; churches with murals; frescoed loggias, the 12th-century Cistercian Abbey of Follina, the old Mollina Del Croda water mill and waterfall on the River Lierza, the River Piave and lots of wineries, cantinas and osterias offering cucina casalinga (home cooking).

Restaurants like Elena and Piero’s Locanda Marinelli, near Valdobbiadene, which hosts Italy’s annual Sparkling Wine Show, are worth trying. As is the Trattoria Alla Cerva in Vittorio Venito, which has rust on its menu. There is mountain goat beard (asparagus shoots) to try, as well as guinea fowl and juniper, venison with beans and millefoglie custard slices.

Prosecco’s success is global. Some 79 million bottles are produced every year and 47 per cent of total production is exported. The UK is second behind Germany in the European consumption table. Sixty per cent is grown in the DOC zone. We came to the end of walk. And, after a quick coffee and grappa, went straight from the finishing tent into the wine show for some more appreciative swirling and swallowing.

“There are many Prosecchi. But only one Prosecco,” said the young girl behind the ballroom counter, pouring me another vino Trevigiani, this time into a big, pulled stem flavour-enhancing glass.

“To Prosecco. The place and the elixir,” she toasted. The church bells chimed, reminding the locals of their devotions.

www.prosecco.it

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