Las Vegas weather, with its arid days and long, warm nights, can inspire great thirsts. When settling down to a meal, diners may not be inclined to splurge on an unctuous red wine. A crisp white seems more fitting for a hot day, and few options are more refreshing than a sparkling wine. Many Las Vegas Italian restaurants’ wine lists include prosecco, Italy’s answer to champagne. It’s more affordable and accessible, and seems ideal for quenching thirsts in the middle of the desert.

In a small countryside patch of Italy’s Treviso province, vines up to 100 years old wind up steep hillsides, heavy with sweet, aromatic glera grapes. This roughly 77-square-mile area is the home of prosecco, which has gained popularity as an affordable alternative to champagne. But prosecco is more than a poor man’s bubbly, and in recent years, it has earned growing recognition as a quality varietal in its own right. No less an authority than Wine Advocate founder Robert Parker has claimed that "for pure delicacy, elegance and freshness, the best proseccos are the finest sparkling wine values in the world."

Being inexpensive doesn’t make prosecco cheap. Several Las Vegas hotels stock their high-end restaurants’ cellars with the quaffable sparkling wine. Within Mandalay Bay, Trattoria del Lupo—Wolfgang Puck’s first Italian restaurant—encourages diners to begin their dinners with a palate-refreshing glass of prosecco.