Twenty years ago if you heard about Prosecco, the white sparkling wine from Italy’s Veneto region, is was probably as a component with white peach juice of the bellini cocktail, invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice. The popularity of that easy-to-drink aperitif helped Prosecco get a foothold in the U.K., German and U.S. markets as a good mixer and as a cheap alternative to Champagne.

Unfortunately Prosecco’s increasing popularity led to the export of enormous amounts of very poor, very cheap, very watery Prosecco, with only a few labels like Bisson, Valdo, Bortolin, Ruggeri and Mionetto producing high quality examples whose prices were modestly higher than poor examples and a lot lower than Champagne.