On Saturday, I took a deep breath and plunged into our wine cellar for its first real clean-up since my father-in-law installed a new shelf seven years ago. Seven hours and one bottle of Graham Beck bubbly later, I'd reduced the number of boxes containing wines that Philip wants to taste over the next few months from 19 to eight (it's amazing how, when you fill each box with bottles as opposed to leaving them stand half empty, much space you clear), and found numerous wines that really should be drunk quite soon. Two, both Italian sparklers I'd brought back from a trip, were summarily put on ice (oh, all right, in the fridge) and I have consumed both during the course of the week.

The first was a Prosecco di Valdobbiadene DOC (it was bought before the region was upgraded to DOCG) made by Valdo. As a grape (not the wine style or the region), prosecco is prized for its delicate flavours and aromatics and is therefore made using the charmat method; it is believed that lees aging, an integral part of the production process for Champagnes and cavas for example, would rob the wine of its freshness. Most Prosecco is best consumed within a year of the vintage but the better ones can age for several years.

Valdo makes many different quality levels of Prosecco. The one I had was the Cuvee di Boj, which is 100% prosecco from the Valle dei Buoi in the small area of S. Pietro di Barbozza municipality of Valdobbiadene. The wine was still very youthful and delicate with shy pear and forthcoming grape aromas and flavours. It hadn't picked up much bottle age or complexity, and finished dry (like bubblies the world over, Prosecco can be made with various residual sugar levels) but a little 'soapy'. While it was very pleasant to sip at 11.5% alcohol, a little Prosecco can go a long way, and I'm not ready to open another bottle just yet.

The second wine was made by an equally well-known Prosecco maker, Mionetto (good luck accessing the web site). It was, however, not a Prosecco but a spumante, Sergio Rosé Vino Spumante Rosato Extra Dry to be exact. It was made from two grapes I am not familiar with; the highly tannic, highly acidic rabaso and the low-tannin, plum and sour cherry lagrein. The label was in Italian and didn't seem to provide any technical information but featured a lot of words like 'personalita' and 'eccellenza'. I had to concur. It was a sunset hue, rather than pink-toned, and red fruited on the nose and palate. Like the Valdo, it was still fresh, despite several years in the bottle, had just 11% alcohol and a gentle tannic tug courtesy its red grapes. But what I really liked was its dryness.

On that note, one can sympathise with Kleine Zalze's now very public dilemma, but the manner in which it solved it has done the industry no favours. Aside from possibly confusing consumers (and perhaps the authorities) and putting competitions and the like in an awkward position, there are sommeliers, restauranteurs, retailers, wine list consultants and journalists - all of whom are part of the industry's extended distribution and marketing network - to consider.

What if the 'Tale of the Three Different Wines' had never been told and what if a wine journalist (or a sommelier who blogs, or a retailer who posts wine reviews on his or her web site) had acquired a bottle of the first wine (with a residual sugar of 2.8 grams per litre), tasted it and wrote about it? What if the review went along the lines of 'Opened a bottle of the award-winning Kleine Zalze Chenin Blanc 2008 last night. Liked the wine, but found it dry and steely as opposed to luscious and rich as the competition's judges alluded in their notes, and as the technical analysis of 7.2 grams per litre residual sugar would suggest.' Would anyone - consumer or industry participant - who read the review doubt the producer and the technical analysis, or the writer?