Britain raises a glass to National Prosecco Day on Thursday 13 August, and this year the country's favourite fizz has a new claim to fame. Prosecco is the engine behind the Hugo Spritz, the elderflower serve that overtook the Aperol Spritz in UK Google searches for the first time this summer.
The bubbles have earned the birthday. Figures from the Prosecco DOC Consortium show 667 million bottles were produced in 2025, worth around 3.6 billion euros, with more than 82% exported to 164 countries, and the UK holds its place as prosecco's second largest export market in the world, behind only the United States. Britain, in short, drinks a remarkable share of Italy's fizz, and increasingly it drinks it in a spritz.
For a wine this famous, prosecco is often half understood. It is made from the Glera grape across a protected zone spanning the Veneto and Friuli in north-east Italy, and it takes its bubbles from the tank method, a second fermentation in steel rather than in the bottle, which is exactly what keeps it fresher, fruitier and friendlier in price than champagne. The labels are the trap: brut is the driest style, extra dry sits in the middle, and dry is, counterintuitively, the sweetest of the three. Anyone buying bottles for a spritz this Prosecco Day should reach for brut or extra dry, since the cocktail brings sweetness of its own.
The spritz is where prosecco's growth now lives. Google Trends UK data shows that over the 13 weeks to 12 July, average search interest in the Hugo Spritz edged ahead of the Aperol Spritz by around 3.6%, the first time the floral newcomer has taken the lead, a remarkable turnaround given that in the same period of 2022 the Hugo attracted just over 2% of Aperol's search interest. Searches for "spritz recipe" doubled year on year over the same window, and the rising tide has lifted the ingredients too, with St-Germain, the elderflower liqueur behind the Hugo, reporting its UK sales more than doubled in the twelve months to March. Different colours, different flavours, same foundation: both of Britain's favourite spritzes are built on a base of dry prosecco.
Boozy, the Manchester based independent that cans bar quality cocktails in house, has felt the shift directly, with sales of its ready to drink Hugo Spritz doubling compared with last summer.
David Baddeley, founder of Boozy, said: "Prosecco Day used to mean a glass on its own. This year Britain is treating prosecco as the start of a cocktail rather than the end of one, and that is the spritz effect. If you are marking the day at home, my one tip is to keep it dry. In a Hugo the elderflower brings all the sweetness you need, so a dry or extra dry prosecco keeps the drink in balance, and remember that on a prosecco label brut actually means drier than dry."
For anyone mixing at home on the day, the Hugo Spritz recipe on the Boozy recipes blog includes an interactive recipe card that scales every measurement instantly, from a single glass to a jug for six or a party batch of 24, and there is a matching card for the classic Aperol Spritz for anyone staying loyal to the orange side. The free Cocktail ABV Calculator lets home bartenders check the strength of their serve across more than 100 cocktail recipes, useful knowledge given a spritz is one of the lightest cocktails you can pour. Those who would rather skip the shopping list entirely can pour the ready to drink Hugo Spritz straight from the can.
However you take your bubbles on 13 August, make it a good one, and a sensible one. For advice on responsible drinking, visit drinkaware.co.uk.
