Wines Like Prosecco: Dry Lambrusco, Crémant de Limoux and 2 More to Try

If you love Prosecco, you love two things about it: the fresh fruit and the easy price. Cava keeps both and adds bread crust. Crémant de Limoux asks a few dollars more and gives you cream and polish. German Sekt keeps the freshness and adds real cut. Dry Lambrusco keeps the fruit and turns it red. None of them asks you to learn a new vocabulary first.

The short answer

• Cava (Spain): green apple, bread crust and toasted almond. The closest swap, and often the smarter buy.
• Crémant de Limoux (France): orchard fruit, a little honey, a clean line. Champagne's method without Champagne's price.
• German Sekt (Germany): lime, green apple and wet stone. Prosecco with a spine, if you buy the grower bottles.
• Dry Lambrusco (Italy): purple fruit with a savory, faintly bitter snap. The red one, built for the table.

What do you want Prosecco to do better?

Prosecco is made from the Glera grape in northeast Italy, and its second fermentation happens in a large steel tank rather than the bottle. That keeps it light, frothy and forward with green apple, pear and white flowers. Most bottles labeled Extra Dry carry a little sweetness, which is why it reads as soft and friendly. That softness is the ceiling. So "like Prosecco, but more" is really three requests. If you want depth and texture, you want bubbles made in the bottle. If you want cut, you want Riesling. If you want bubbles with dinner instead of before it, you want a red.

Cava: the closest swap

Catalonia, Spain · dry, traditional method · KAH-vah

Cava is made the same way as Champagne: the bubbles form in the bottle, over months on the lees. The classic blend is Macabeo, Xarel·lo (sha-REL-loh) and Parellada, and Xarel·lo is the one to watch. It gives good Cava a nutty, faintly herbal backbone and a texture Prosecco never has.

Versus Prosecco: drier, finer-bubbled, more savory. Where Prosecco gives you fruit, Cava gives you fruit plus bread crust and toasted almond, for about the same money.

The catch: cheap Cava can taste of almost nothing, thin and faintly bitter, which is how the category earned its dowdy reputation. Spend a few dollars more than you would on entry Prosecco.

Look for: a producer your shop stands behind, and ask them by name.

Crémant de Limoux: the history lesson that tastes good

Limoux, Languedoc, France · traditional method, rounder

Crémant is the French term for traditional-method sparkling made outside Champagne, and Limoux has the best origin story in the category. Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire recorded a sparkling wine there in 1531, decades before Champagne got the credit. Crémant de Limoux blends Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc in with the local grapes for a rounder, more polished pour.

Versus Prosecco: creamier and more structured, with orchard fruit, a little honey and a clean line down the middle. This is the bottle for when Prosecco feels a touch simple and Champagne feels like too much money.

The catch: Limoux sells two sparkling labels, and they aren't the same wine. Blanquette de Limoux leans on the local Mauzac grape; Crémant is the rounder one. Read which one you're holding.

Look for: a producer your shop stands behind, and ask them by name.

German Sekt: the one nobody else has tried

Germany · dry, often Riesling

Sekt is Germany's sparkling wine, and most of what gets exported cheaply is forgettable. The ones worth your time are grower-made, labeled Winzersekt, often built on Riesling. Riesling bubbles are a different experience: high, bright acid, lime and green apple, and a wet-stone character that keeps the whole glass lively.

Versus Prosecco: leaner and more electric, with real cut. If you like Prosecco but wish it had more spine, a dry Riesling Sekt is your answer.

The catch: the bottom shelf has the same trap as Cava. Read the label for Winzersekt or Sekt b.A., and skip the anonymous supermarket bottles.

Look for: a producer your shop stands behind, and ask them by name.

Dry Lambrusco: the wild card

Emilia-Romagna, Italy · sparkling red, dry

Lambrusco spent decades living down the sweet, industrial version that flooded American shelves in the 1980s. The dry style, labeled secco, is a different animal: purple-fruited, faintly bitter in the good way, with a savory snap that makes it one of the best wines going at a meal.

Versus Prosecco: it isn't trying to be Prosecco, which is the point. Serve it lightly chilled when you want bubbles with dinner instead of before it.

The catch: the sweet version is still out there. If the label doesn't say secco, you may be buying the wine that gave Lambrusco its reputation. It's also the hardest of the four to find.

Look for: Lini 910, Cleto Chiarli or Medici Ermete.

Where to buy

All four are sold in the US. Cava and Crémant are the easiest to find in a good shop; dry Lambrusco may take a specialist or an online order. I haven't confirmed a specific bottle in stock online this month, so I'm not linking one. Take the names above to your local shop and ask for them by name.

One thing I owe you plainly: I haven't scored these bottles side by side yet. When I have, the scores go here, and this guide gets shorter.

For more swaps against the famous names, see Order This Instead or the full Lesser-Known Wines guide.