I can’t remember a time when there were as many refreshingly drinkable reds for summer as there are today. I don’t think it’s just my own taste that’s changed but I’m increasingly attracted in summer to red wines that are light to medium in body, that have little or no oak, and that do a wine’s job, often just lightly chilled, of refreshing the parts. These are wine that don’t leave you feeling that you’ve been dealt a right hook to the stomach of oak, an uppercut of tannin to the mouth and then floored by a whack of knee-shattering alcohol.

If I had £1 for every time I read that the riesling revival was just around the corner, I’d be laughing. And if I were a rich man, oy, I’d fill my cellar with lots of 2009 German riesling. In fact, compared to much extravagantly priced 2009 Bordeaux, current offers of 2009 German riesling look positively cheap. Riesling generally is good value. Which brings me back to the revival, if that’s the right word for something that never really happened in the first place.

‘Let them drink wine’ goes the cry in Bordeaux as the gap between the Marie Antoinette haves and the sans-culotte have-nots widens. After months of dragging their heels, the bordelais have pronounced, or their cash registers at least have rung to a familiar tune. All the tricks of the Bordeaux trade were deployed to stoke demand for the 2009 vintage. According to the wine exchange, Livex, average price rises over the great 2005 vintage were up 13 per cent until mid-June vintage. Between the 14 and 18 June, they went up to 29 per cent.

I’m not sure who decided that the only drink for curry is lager. It’s true that chilli can be as much an enemy of wine as chocolate and vinaigrette, but it doesn’t have to be. If the spicing is subtle, as it often is in better Indian restaurants in the UK, or, dare I suggest it, in ready-made Indian meals, a good choice of wine can be a thoroughly satisfying partner to Indian food. Why confine it to wine? If you can break through another cultural barrier, sake is a rice-based drink that goes naturally with Indian food.

The race to bring back the new beaujolais vintage started off as friendly rivalry between Clement Freud and wine merchant Joseph Berkmann. 1972 saw Atticus diarist Allan Hall extend it to England. With the official release date of 15 November came the first invasion of planes and boats and trains. Led in France by Georges Duboeuf and his glamorous cohorts of chefs, musicians and film stars, the nouveau phenomenon epitomised what the gamay grape was all about: a juicy, cherryish red with no delusions of grandeur. It was simply a jolly good drink everyone could enjoy with a saucisson.

Over the next four weeks, South African footie fans will be blowing their vuvuzelas loud and proud in a joyful release of pent-up emotion. Bafana Bafana may not be quite the finished article the Springbok rugby team was in 1995. So wishful thinking on a grand scale is required to expect Nelson Mandela to be presenting the World Cup to the home-grown heroes of 2010. Or Jacob Zuma, the republic’s president, who played for the political prisoners’ soccer team on Robben Island. Yet soccer, unlike rugby, as journalist Celia Dugger says, ‘is the fanatically followed sport of the black majority’.

Just as the tasting the of the Bordeaux 2009 vintage switched to sales mode a couple of weeks back, Tesco was announcing the launch of a new Fine Wine range on tesco.com. This has nothing to do with Tesco’s Finest range which. despite the name, is simply a clever way of marketing everyday wines. According to Tesco itself, it was to do with the return of consumer confidence, although it was notable that it coincided with Waitrose and Majestic’s Bordeaux 2009 opening offers.

2009 Villa Maria Cellar Selection Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough, New Zealand

A notch up from Villa Maria’s Private Bin Sauvignon, the Cellar Selection is more pungently aromatic and richer in classic Marlborough passion fruit flavour underscored by green pepper, with a grapefruity tang on the aftertaste making this a mouthwatering prospect at a bargain price. Try with warm goat’s cheese on toast and a drizzle of olive oil. £7.99 at Majestic, reduced from £9.99.

2008 Chablis Cuvée Amandine, France

When the headline beamed out at me, ‘Rose attracts male following’, I was naturally flattered, albeit puzzled as to who my new friends were. What a difference an accent makes. The word was of course rosé and the story in question confirmed that real men are drinking rosé when once it wouldn’t have been sniffed at. Why? According to Master of Wine, Pierpolo Petrassi, wine buyer for Waitrose, ‘the cliché of rosé being a female drink’ is still prevalent, but less than it was, thanks to the growing popularity of drier styles of rosé and their suitability with food.

Election night looms, so time to vote for a party, any party frankly as long as it involves drinks of celebration and consolation. I couldn’t condone getting tanked up for the polling station, however much you might need it, but a Passion Fruit Margarita might help improve on the poor turnout of the last two general elections. Take a 50 ml shot of tequila, an extra dash of triple sec optional, and a pouch of a passion fruit flavour cocktail mixer like Funkin. Shake and strain over fresh ice, stir rapidly, add ice cubes, a lime wedge and two small straws.