Partiers Pick Prosecco For New Year's

2015 is off to a great start for Italy's sparkling wine producers, because they saw sales boom through 2014 and well into the holiday season as people all over the world started drinking more prosecco.

Champagne might be the traditional way to celebrate the New Year, but more and more people have been celebrating with prosecco instead. Prosecco is generally less expensive than Champagne, but its bubbles are just as festive, and the lower price means people can buy a lot more of it. According to The Local, by the end of the holidays, an estimated 220 million bottles of prosecco are expected to have been consumed around the world in 2014.

All varieties of Italian sparkling wine showed a massive 24 percent increase in sales in 2014 compared with 2013, and most of that growth has been credited to the increasing popularity of Italian sparkling wines abroad. In Italy, prosecco sales have not shown a notable increase over 2013, and consumption in general is down from a peak several years ago.