If a glass of festive fizz was your preferred tipple to see in the New Year, the likelihood is that the bubbles were the product of north-eastern Italy rather than northern France. Over the last two years, Prosecco sales have outstripped Champagne in the United Kingdom’s sparkling wine market, with consumption increasing by 48 per cent, that is 86 million bottles.

Remarkably, given the fivefold difference in population, the British bought double the amount sold in the United States and, despite this column’s prediction a year ago that falling grape yields in 2014, due to soaked vines on the DOC flatlands, would dent sales and consumption, the Prosecco bubble shows no signs of bursting. On the contrary, producers north of Venice – around Treviso and all the way up to Italy’s border with Slovenia – are planting new vineyards to cope with British demand.