Anyone for tonic?

Heather D ponders the appeal of quintessential summer drinks.

Is it Pimm's o'clock yet? Truth be told I don't care overmuch for the over-priced, gin-based drink, but I have immense respect for the marketing. Pimm's has so inveigled its way into our notion of the English summer that it feels as though the season hasn't properly started until you've downed your first pint of it. And with the accompanying cucumber, strawberry, mint leaves and such, it must include at least two of your five a day, surely?

But once we've got our obligatory glass of Pimm's out of the way, it's time to ponder which drinks offer just the right note of refreshment and a little celebration of summer.



Top of any list has to be a really good gin and tonic. The best G&T I've ever had was at the cocktail bar of Orient Express-styled, English/Russian restaurant Bob Bob Ricard in London. However, you'd need a cabinet full of specialist ingredients to reproduce it at home. Best to keep it simple and stick with quality gin and the best tonic. In fact simplicity is surely the key to the enduring popularity of G&T – how many of us would have the ingredients for and inclination to throw together a Cosmopolitan or a Harvey Wallbanger when we get in from work? A bottle of gin, some tonic, ice and either a lemon or lime – that'll work.

Big bottles of tonic are fine if you use them up the same day, but there's nothing like a slightly flat tonic for ruining your G&T. For perfect freshness, small bottles or little cans are the solution and, if you want to drink the best, then get hold of Fevertree tonic (£3.05 for four 200ml bottles from Waitrose and Tesco). Tasting this alongside Schweppes can be compared to watching a film in the cinema versus on your TV screen at home. The Fevertree has an extra dimension and great depth of flavour which will turn a simple drink into a cocktail.

The gin: whatever I say here, I'm going to get into trouble, as people can develop fierce loyalties which are not to be challenged. I will simply offer my own opinion, for what it's worth, make of it what you will.



My personal favourite is Tanqueray, which is from the same stable as market leader Gordon's and can be likened to the same gin, with the volume turned up. One of the key differences is that the alcohol level is higher – but it's not just that a stronger gin makes a better drink. Gin is really all about the various flavourings, known as botanicals, most notably juniper berries, but which can also include exotics such as coriander seeds, citrus peel, angelica and orris root. The exact mix of botanicals which each distiller infuses into the gin during its second distillation will influence the flavour profile of the final drink. The more botanicals used, the greater the complexity of flavour – but higher alcohol allows a greater range of the aromatics produced to be expressed in the gin. So a higher alcohol gin is a more high definition experience, to continue the television analogy.

Tanqueray (£20.49 recommended retail price) is,for me, the archetypal London Dry Gin: dry, with bright, citrus and herbal-medicinal layers of flavour which evolve and linger on the palate.

London Dry Gin, incidentally, is not necessarily distilled in the capital. Practically all the gins we see on supermarket and wine merchant shelves will say “London Dry”, but they can, in fact, be distilled anywhere. This may change in the future, but for now the term denotes a style of gin, rather than anything about its origin.

The water used to make any spirit is going to have an influence on its flavour. You only have to try a cup of tea in another part of the country to know that water is not really neutral at all and can be surprisingly variable in flavour. If you would like to explore the influence of water on gin, then look for a bottle of Plymouth Gin, made in, yes, Plymouth using the soft water of Dartmoor. This results in a softer, smoother gin than the London Dry – but importantly Plymouth (£17 recommended retail price) is also a higher strength spirit, allowing the seven botanicals used to shine.

But man cannot live by gin alone. Or probably shouldn't. If you tire of the grassy, citrussy kick of the G&T, who are the new pretenders, hoping to become the hit summer drink of 2011?

Croft Pink Port is a pretender to the summertime drinking crown. Port is making a play for a new, younger (not to say female) market rather than aged, pass the port to the right gentlemen's club frequenting, cigar-smoking oldies. The ladies have shown their fondness for all things pink, so why not a pink port?

They have cleverly overcome the potential problem of any fortified wine, which is naturally high in alcohol, by suggesting the use of port as a mixer. Why not try whipping up one of these at home?

Bubbles & Pink




 

9cl chilled Croft Pink

12cl Prosecco or Champagne

1.5cl Cointreau

Dash of bitters

Pour into a Champagne flute and garnish with a lemon twist

Croft Pink is available from Sainsbury, Morrison's and the Co-operative for £10.72 a bottle.

Pilgrimage among the vines

Sometimes it must feel like the French are doing it deliberately. Making life difficult for people trying to get to grips with their wines, that is.

Leaving aside the whole business of region names rather than grape varieties, no back label explaining what sort of wine might be in the bottle and an impenetrable Appellation Contrôlée system – is a Saint-Emilion Premier Grand Cru Classé better (in theory at least) than a Burgundy Grand Cru? We'll let all that go, but let's talk names.

You pick up a bottle, not cheap, and it says Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh on the label. Is that a grape variety that you've never come across before? A region? And while we're at it, how on earth do you pronounce it?

In fact there's nothing bloody-minded or contrary in the story of how things got so confusing in the world of French wine. It's simply a perfect illustration of local produce, consumed locally, with names, rules and customs that evolved over centuries when, for the most part, people were born, lived and died within the same small corner of the country.

If you lived in the Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh wine-growing area (yes, a place, rather than a grape) you would know that its white wines are so labelled. The grapes involved would probably be a blend of gros and petit manseng, possibly with some petit courbu or arrufiac as well. Travellers from elsewhere in France would be every bit as confused and intrigued as you or I if they ever found themselves in Southwest France, home to Pacherenc and a host of other little-known wines and grape varieties.

Southwest France is the name given to the rather rag tag band of wine appellations lying roughly between Bordeaux, Toulouse and the Pyrenees. Sometimes it's hard to see what unites them – and in truth, sometimes, there is no real link between the wines you find here. However, one thing that all these little mini regions share is that they lie on the ancient pilgrimage route south towards Santiago di Compostella – and where there's pilgrims, it seems, wines will follow. Now, wine pilgrims with an adventurous bent will find it a rewarding area to explore.

The same vineyards which produce white wines labelled Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh also make red wines, this time called Madiran, from the aptly-named tannat grape. As you might imagine, this grape is naturally high in tannin (and acidity) and makes some of the densest, monster reds you will ever encounter – though they can also age surprisingly gracefully.

Or you can stop off in Fronton, which supplies sappy, robust and spicy reds and rosés made from the Fer Servadou grape to the thirsty inhabitants of nearby Toulouse.

Beyond Toulouse is Gaillac, where Fer Servadou is known as Braucol (still with me?). This same grape is also known as Mansois in the tiny appellation of Marcillac. Confused? And we haven't even touched on Negrette, Pinenc or Duras yet.

Heather D had the chance to immerse herself in the wines of the region (not literally you understand) while working on behalf of Southwest France at the recent London International Wine Fair. Having tasted her way through 77 wines, these are her picks of the Southwest.

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh 2010, Domaine Capmartin, £10.30 from www.greatwesternwines.co.uk

There has to be a Pacherenc in the list and this one typifies a modern, fresh style. Light bodied, floral, crisp, dry and tangy – and somehow unlike anything else you've tasted. This is mostly gros manseng with a little arrufiac and petit manseng.

Côtes de Gascogne, Les 4 Réserve, Domaine du Tariquet 2009, £9.40 from Wineservice of Lingfield

Gascony, famously the home of d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer, is also home to the family-owned Tariquet winery. Most Côtes de Gascogne is pretty simple, fruity and crisp stuff. This one, an intriguing blend of gros manseng, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and semillon has a hint of floral, slightly peachy fruit – a gentle introduction to the region.

Saint Mont, Le Faîte 2009, £14.99 from Adnams (branches include Richmond)

Gros manseng makes another appearance here, this time joined by arrufiac and petit courbu. Save this wine for food – for a white wine it's surprisingly beefy, but the crisp acidity keeps the fruit nice and juicy. An interesting alternative to oaked chardonnay.

Irouléguy, Xuri 2009, Cave d'Irouléguy, £15.49 from les Caves de Pyrène of Guildford

This may look like an incomprehensible list of names from a Tolkein novel, but in fact this is simply our, by now, old friends gros manseng, petit manseng and petit courbu – but grown in the Basque region of Irouléguy, literally in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The aromas are honeysuckle and exotic fruits, while the palate is bone dry and bracing – a real original.

Marcillac, Lo Sang del Païs 2009, Domaine du Cros, £10.99 from les Caves de Pyrène

Marcillac is the region, the grape is fer servadou (often also called mansois here). Lo Sang del Païs means blood of the land in the local Occitane language, so the rather delicate nose ,with a whiff of violets, might surprise. The palate, however, is indeed earthy, with a refreshing acidity. This is what you might call a wine bar wine – great with some rustic finger food.

Saint Mont, Le Faîte 2007, £16.99 from Adnams

The red twin to the white above, this is similarly big-boned and needs decanting, or at least opening well in advance, in order to open out and soften a little. This is mostly the fiercely tannic tannat grape, with some pinenc and cabernet sauvignon, and has big, bold flavours of liquorice and chocolate.

Madiran, Château Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes 2006, £29.99 from les Caves de Pyrène

Bouscassé is one of the top estates within Madiran, and this is a great illustration of the power and poise of the best wines that the tannat grape can make. Smoky, fragrant, full-bodied but with succulent fruit. This will keep on developing for a few more years to come.

Madiran, Château Montus Prestige 2002, £44.99 from les Caves de Pyrène

Both these Madirans are made by the same man and both are 100% tannat, so this is a chance to explore the influence of terroir. The extra age also gives you a chance to see how tannat ages – this wine is full-bodied, rounded, satisfying, long-lasting and is a truly authentic expression of a unique wine style. A word of warning – decanting is needed as there is quite a sediment in the bottle.

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh, Brumaire 2007, £22.49 for a half bottle from les Caves de Pyrène

Back where we started, with Pacherenc. Brumaire is the name of one of the months from the French revolutionary calendar and equates, more or less, to November, when the grapes for this dessert wine were harvested. Brume means mist, which conjures up images of ghostly figures moving through the vineyards, their cold-numbed fingers searching out bunches of nobly rotten grapes. That may be poetic licence, nevertheless the wine is hauntingly delicious, with layers of honey, tropical fruit, caramel and beeswax in a lusciously sweet mouthful – but with a beautifully fresh, clean finish.

Australia's royal family

The Aussies may not have a queen of their own (Dame Edna Everidge excepted), but they can claim to have some wine royalty in the form of the self-styled Australia's First Families of Wine.

Heather D had the pleasure of meeting quite a few of them as part of a “speed tasting” event recently. Each producer had just three minutes to talk about their winery and to conduct a tasting of one of their wines for a group of wine writers and bloggers. It wasn't relaxing for anyone involved, but certainly forced us to talk to many more winemakers than we normally would in one day, never mind in 45 minutes.

Ross Brown of Brown Brothers

Luckily, there then followed a much more leisurely lunch, courtesy of wine bar/restaurant Vinoteca at foodie hotspot of Smithfield market in the city of London – accompanied of course by more of the First Family's wines. As the saying goes, it's a dirty job...

Far too many of us wine drinkers think that Australia's wines are nothing more than over-oaked and over-here chardonnay and cab-shiraz produced by big brands with no real connection to a particular place. The mission of the First Families is to encourage us all to explore the wealth of wines made by family-owned wineries, who have a real connection to their region, giving their wines a sense of place. In short, they are not simply the wine equivalent of an alcoholic fruit jelly.

That's not to say that these are micro-wineries, lavishing attention on tiny quantities of hard to find wines that they make in their garage and then sell at astronomical prices. Many of the names involved are well known to UK drinkers and represent sizeable concerns whose wines are widely available in this country – the likes of Brown Brothers, Yalumba and d'Arenberg. So get thyselves to a wine merchant and seek out these blue-blooded Australians.

Standout wines from the tasting:

McWilliams Lovedale Semillon 2005, £25 from The Wine Society, Berry Brothers & Rudd

Semillon from the Hunter Valley can rightly be claimed as a unique Australian wine style. In its youth, dry semillon resembles nothing more than (lightly) alcoholic lime juice and you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. Give it around five years in bottle, however, and delicious honey, toasty and lanolin aromas and flavours emerge – this one is like tropical marmalade on toast. Sauvignon blanc lovers looking to widen their drinking horizons could do far worse.

Tahbilk Viognier, 2009, £11.99 from slurp.co.uk

The Tahbilk winery, north of Melbourne in relatively cool-climate Victoria, has long been famed for its delicious marsanne. To show they are no one-trick pony, this great value viognier is a wonderfully characterful mouthful, balancing the natural weight of the grape with lovely hay-like freshness. Many viogniers can be too weighty, not to say obese, and offer little refreshment – this one is different. Great for summer lunches in the sun.

d'Arenberg Money Spider Roussanne 2009, £11.99 at Bibendum or www.everywine.co.uk

Chester Osborn, fourth generation of his family to make wines at their McLaren Vale winery, is no shrinking violet, famed for his loud shirts as well as his esoteric (but also cannily memorable) wine names. Their reds are an exuberant expression of McLaren Vale terroir, but I was captivated by this deceptively delicious wine. There is no oak (in fact none of these whites has seen any oak) but instead many layers of flavour, from greengage plum to herbs to wax crayons. Lots going on, but light on its feet.

Jim Barry The Lodge Hill Riesling 2008, £9.67 from slurp.co.uk, Hennings Wine Merchants (branches in Pulborough and Petworth)

Calling all sauvignon blanc drinkers – get your chops round some Australian riesling and you'll wonder why you got so excited about the two-dimensional charms of most Kiwi sauvignons. Riesling shares the lively acidity and fruity-floral combination of sauvignon – but most sauvignon needs to be drunk up within a year of the vintage (not a problem in our house I hear you cry) before it becomes more like cat's pee and tinned peas than gooseberry. Riesling, by contrast, becomes only more interesting as it ages – this is beautifully fresh for a three year old wine, with limey, mineral acidity. Mouthwatering stuff.

Yalumba The Scribbler Cabernet Shiraz 2008, £12.95 at www.slurp.co.uk, www.everywine.co.uk, Berry Brothers & Rudd

Generally I find Yalumba's red wines too much in the mould of the typical Aussie fruit bomb, which have so much ripe, sweet fruit and alcohol that I can't imagine what you could possibly eat with them. Blackcurrant jam on toast, perhaps, though that could make for a hardcore breakfast.

This wine, though, has much more than just fruit going on – there is a medicinal edge, going towards mintiness, and a leathery whiff about it. The tannins are soft and there is a welcome herbal lift. Definitely a three-dimensional wine.

Campbells Bobbie Burns Durif 2006, £10.26 from New London Wine

Campbells are famous for their glorious, sticky, “dates in liquid form” liqueur muscats – but they are best saved for the winter months. If you are toying with the idea of a venison casserole, or looking ahead to the game season, then this durif could be your man. Durif sounds French and it was indeed created by a Dr Durif in Montpellier by crossing syrah (shiraz) with the little-known peloursin grape. It's rare in France, but seems to thrive in the hotter climate of Australia, where it transforms into a kind of über-shiraz. Dark, brooding, herbal and medicinal, reminiscent of port, though not overtly fruity. Its savoury style would make a great match for something seriously meaty.

Wine highs and lows

It's rare for wine to make it into mainstream news, but it has made a couple of daring incursions from its home in the food and drink pages in recent weeks.

One was to highlight the incredible prices being touted for Bordeaux's latest in a growing list of “vintage of the century” - 2010 in this case. Forget belt-tightening and talk of recession, the Bordelais can sell all they want of these super-premium liquid status symbols to cash-rich investors and just plain rich Far East wine lovers – even at £1,000 a bottle. That's a bottle.

No wine can ever truly be “worth” £1,000. And the sad thing is, these precious commodities may never actually be drunk, merely traded and sold on over the years in order to realise a profit. What a fate to befall a drink that is made to give pleasure – although financial gain can bring pleasure in its own way.

The second wine ripple in the news pond was caused by the results of an “experiment” at the Edinburgh Science festival, where wine drinkers were asked whether they thought the wine they were tasting cost under £5, or between £10 and £30 a bottle. Overall, most people were right only half the time – which suggests that they were either guessing at random, or that most people truly can't tell the difference between the posh and the plonk.

We have our own perspective on this story. A popular format for the wine tastings we run is a blind tasting, where our guests can't see the identity of the wines they are drinking. And a popular question is to ask if people can spot a more expensive wine. We do this, not simply to identify the cheap dates in the group (though that is useful to know), but to see which wines people really prefer, when they can't see the label.

Very generally speaking, there's a 50/50 split between those preferring the posh stuff to the everyday. Heather D's highly unscientific conclusion is that it is mostly guided by familiarity. If someone is used to drinking classed growth claret, they are going to be attuned to its characters and be able to spot them in a blind tasting. If they are more used to full-on, straightforwardly fruity wines that you can pick up for around a fiver, again they will recognize those same characters blind. And probably react with horror and face-pulling at the level of tannin and lack of overt fruit in a “posher” wine that costs many times more.

So what are we to make of all this? Is it pointless for us to spend more than £10 on any bottle of wine? We can't really tell the difference and the most expensive stuff has more in common with a piece of fine art than it does with anything that you might actually drink.

Looking to the positive, there are plenty of wines to be had for under £10 that are actually undervalued. Look for the out of fashion, the unfamiliar and, mostly, the Old World for value for money refreshment over the summer months.

Sherry

Sherry has got to take the biscuit in the value for money stakes. These fortified wines take years to produce and have a unique combination of flavours that can't be found elsewhere. Banish thoughts of dusty bottles of sweet brown gloop and grab a bottle of Fino or Manzanilla – the lightest bodied, palest coloured and driest sherries of all. Some salted almonds, a few tapas and an ice cold glass of this and you could be in sunny Andalusia instead of Surrey.

Sainsbury's Manzanilla Superior is practically given away at £5.49 a bottle.

Waitrose have the iconic Hidalgo La Gitana Manzanilla on special offer at just £6.99 a bottle until 24^th May.

Muscadet

In the same, whiff of bracing sea air vein as dry sherry, Muscadet can make a perfect aperitif wine, or is wonderful with white fish or mussels.

Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine sur lie 2009/10, Domaine de la Tourmaline - £6.99, down to £6.49 when you buy two bottles at Majestic is a good example of the combination of tangy acidity and ripe, slightly tropical fruit style of modern Muscadet. A must for a plate of moules marinières.

Beaujolais

Like Muscadet, you might reach for a bottle of this only if you're pulling on your Top Gun jumpsuit and aviator glasses, en route to an Eighties party. But overcome your aversion and you'll find Beaujolais has much to offer and makes perfect summer drinking, especially chilled on a summer evening. Its soft, cherry-raspberry fruit is super with some rustic charcuterie, beret and string of onions optional.

Hospices de Beaujeu Beaujolais Villages 2009/10 is also on special offer at Waitrose for £5.99 until 24^th May. Its gentle tannins and exuberant fruit make it a great match for cold meats and duck with Asian flavours.

Southern Rhône

We've all heard of Chateauneuf du Pape – but be prepared to part with at least £15 a bottle and, all too often, prepare to be disappointed. The value in this region is to be found in outlying areas that don't trip off the tongue in quite the same way, such as the Costières de Nîmes. The grape varieties are familiar, even if the region isn't – Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, sometimes a little Carignan. The whiff of the wild herbs of the garrigue, a twist of black olive, ripe, spicy black fruit – and voilà, southern France in a glass.

Château Mourgues du Grès, Les Galets Rouges 2009, £8.84 from Les Caves de Pyrène of Artington, Guildford has all the herby, black fruit you could wish for – great for serving alongside a classy barbecue banger.

Roll out the barrel for a right Royal romantic street party

Never let it be said that the drinks trade doesn't know a bandwagon when it sees one. Tomorrow's royal wedding has prompted all manner of English beer and wine producers to bring out special editions of their wares, in the hope that we will grab a bottle of their particular brew as part of our patriotic celebrations.

Windsor and Eton go for the romantic angle

Beer has more flexibility than wine when it comes to releasing short-lived special editions – along with a well-known penchant for punning labels. Windsor Knot Ale, produced by the Windsor and Eton brewery, is “yours to have and to hold, while stocks last” and available from Taurus Wines of Bramley for the, ahem, princely sum of £1.99 a bottle, or £39.99 for a case of 24. It has, apparently, a refreshing taste and exotic fruit aroma.

Suitably kitsch label from Castle Rock

Nottingham-based Castle Rock brewery's Kiss Me Kate ale has managed to garner international attention, with Time Magazine, CNN and French TV channel M6 all giving it exposure. Nottingham is a long way to go to sample the draught version, but Morrison's are stocking the bottled incarnation for £1.50.

Adnam's good taste label

Adnams have, we hope, put more effort into the brewing than they have into the naming of their unimaginatively titled Royal Wedding Ale. We are pleased to note, however, that one of the key ingredients is heather honey – bound to be delicious!

Buckingham Palace has thus far refused to lift the veil on what wine will be served at the wedding breakfast, but we can only hope that they have done the decent thing and chosen at least one English wine to toast the happy couple.

Our home produced wines get better with each passing year and some of the sparkling wines produced in this country certainly bear comparison with many from around the world. We may not have anything quite to rival Dom Perignon just yet, but there are many English fizzes which consistently scoop international awards and deserve our support.

So what are you eating on THE DAY? Perhaps simple but always welcome British bangers with a home-made English apple chutney, or more sophisticated fare such as Scottish smoked salmon with Hampshire watercress and Devon crème fraiche. Or maybe you are going to be cooking up what is now recognized as the most popular English national dish, curry. Whatever your choice, have fun and the following wines will add a festive sparkle to your celebrations.

Camel Valley in Cornwall is on a roll, with a list of awards as long as your arm, including a gold medal and trophy for best sparkling rosé in the world at last year's International Wine Challenge for their 2008 Pinot Noir Rosé Brut. That vintage has, not surprisingly, sold out, but you can try their Camel Valley Brut 2008 for £22.95 at Waitrose.

Closer to home, Mike Roberts of Ridgeview vineyards in Ditchling, Sussex was one of the first to insist on using the classic Champagne grape varieties, when many English winemakers were trying to fashion a silk purse out of the sow's ear of hybrid varieties like Seyval Blanc and Reichensteiner. His dedication has paid off and, for our money, offers the most consistently successful range of English fizzes around. His 100% chardonnay Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs 2006 scooped the award for best sparkling wine in the world at last year's Decanter World Wine Awards and is available online at www.ridgeview.co.uk for £24.95. And remember, these are competitions where wines are tasted blind against the best of the best, including smart Champagnes.

Nyetimber, near Chichester, make only sparkling wine and set their sights on making the best quality fizz since day one, back in the mid-nineties. Word has it that her Madge (by which we mean the Queen, not Madonna) has previously served Nyetimber wines to visiting foreign dignitaries (we do hope it was Jacques Chirac). Will she stick with the tried and tested? Their 2001 Blanc de Blancs won a well-deserved gold medal at the International Wine Challenge last year and you can pick up a bottle for yourself for £24.99 from Taurus Wines of Bramley.

Some of our homegrown wine producers are commercially savvy enough to spot a royal marketing opportunity and a few have managed to bring out limited editions of their wines to tie in with the wedding.

Chapel Down, England's largest wine producer, has brought out a special edition sparkler called The Union 2006, a blend of chardonnay for elegance and finesse and pinot noir, which gives depth and texture. You can get hold of it to celebrate along with Will and Kate (or save it for your own celebration) for £75 for 3 bottles from www.englishwinesgroup.com.

If you'd like to celebrate with others, but don't have a street party in the offing, for £55 you can join Denbies for their Royal Wedding Celebration Ball, where you can eat from the same menu as was served to HRH the Queen and Prince Philip in 2004, accompanied by Denbies wines, of course. Tiaras optional.

If you are the creative type you can of course knit your own Royal wedding scene, likewise Lego have brought out their own version to build - even anticipating the marriage outfits. However if, like us, you do not feel the need to do anything other than pop a cork, then just relax and enjoy as you either shed a tear of joy at this happy and romantic national celebration of love, or just give hearty thanks for a day in the sun, released from the daily grind.

A moveable feast

Easter is, to quote Ernest Hemingway, a moveable feast. 24^th April is apparently the second to last date on which Easter can possibly fall. In case you were wondering, the earliest possible date for Easter is 22^nd March.

All this shifting around can cause confusion and create challenges for schools – some children will have finished their “Easter” holiday before the religious festival has actually happened this year. In order to avoid being caught out, supermarkets take the sensible precaution of stocking Easter eggs and hot cross buns from January onwards.

While we have another week to wait for the onslaught of chocolate and general pigging out which characterises Easter, people in Thailand are already in the throes of celebrating Songkran, or their new year festival. Instead of happening in the dead of winter, the Thai festival falls in the hottest month of the year in that country, when temperatures can reach 40ºC or more. Understandably, they choose to mark the festival by indulging in large scale water fights, with hoses, buckets and water pistols all entering the fray. The celebrations last for 3 days, with time being stretched to fit: 13^th April is the last day of the old year, 14^th a transition day between the old and new and 15^th April is the first day of the new year - now why didn't we think of that?

If you fancy indulging in a Thai banquet to get into the Songkran spirit, you will doubtless be wondering what drinks to serve with it – aren't you? Well we are.

Tsinga is of course the authentic Thai beer that is perfect with your pad thai. However, you might find the fizz and the highish alcohol a little unwelcome if you plan on trying things from the spicier end of the spectrum. A green curry has a tricky combination of sweet, sour and hot flavours – but try a cloudy wheat beer and you might find that its fruity, sour edge stands up well.

Wine lovers have to think carefully when matching wines to strongly-flavoured, spicy foods. Heather D was once challenged to come up with wines to accompany a Thai buffet and the undoubted star was an unfashionable but delicious German riesling. Bassermann-Jordan Riesling 2008/9, £9.99 from Waitrose, has just the right balance of apricot-y sweetness and citrus acidity to cope with both green and red curries with aplomb.

You could also try Tim Adams Pinot Gris 2009, from the Clare Valley in Australia (£11 from tesco.com). It's a pretty pale mink colour and has plenty of really juicy greengage-y fruit, coupled with crisp acidity that makes light work of cleansing the palate. Probably a better choice away from the hottest curries, but fine with Thai flavours.

What doesn't work? With your best interests at heart, Heather D managed to find a “good” bad match – a bone dry rosé. The sweetness in the food made the wine taste unbearably dry and stripped out all the fruit from the wine – more of a mouthwash than a palate cleanser. You should also avoid tannin (which rules out most, if not all, red wines) as this will fight with the chilli and spices.

Now all you need is a water pistol.

Back to Blighty and the impending Easter celebrations. For some of us, this is the most welcome feast of the year, coming as it does after the self-imposed privations of Lent. We must confess that we are not much given to depriving ourselves of anything for Lent, but enjoy participating in the excesses of Easter nevertheless.

Lamb is the traditional meat for Easter and it is happily a very wine-friendly meat. With Easter so late this year, it's just possible that the first spring lamb may be available – if your purse can stretch to it. These lambs are essentially reared indoors and fed only on their mother's milk prior to slaughter (let's face facts), producing tender, light pink meat with a delicate (some would say bland) flavour.

Such delicate flavours shouldn't be subjected to anything too overwhelming. If the weather is kind, then a chilled rosé could be fun. Try Château de Sours 2009/10 (2010 if you can find it), £.9.99 or buy 2 for £7.99 each at Majestic. This is the rosé that spawned a thousand (or lots of them, anyway) imitators, leading the way with its ravishing light ruby colour, lashings of plummy fruit, while remaining bone-dry and food friendly.

We prefer to save the spring lamb for later in the season, when the price isn't so eyewatering and the meat has perhaps a little more bite, but also more flavour.

Hogget, or year-old lamb, will have much more flavour at this time of year. Roast lamb with Jersey Royals and green beans is a meal to makes the mouth water. Having saved some money on the lamb, you could splash out on a fancy wine to go with it: Sonoma-Cutrer Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2007 (£21.99 at Waitrose, Ocado and www.everywine.co.uk – but down £5 at Ocado until 26 April). Pinot noir is a great friend to lighter red meats and is lovely with lamb. Russian River Valley, in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, has long had a reputation for fine pinots, largely thanks to the coastal fogs which act like natural air conditioning, keeping the temperatures low. Enticing perfume of lilies, roses and a hint of cinnamon, lead onto a lush palate of raspberry and cherry fruit with a lick of vanilla oak. A suitably hedonistic wine for a time of feasting.

Chocolate – there's no way to escape it at this time of year. If you're looking for the secrets to matching wine and chocolate, then have a look at our previous column, now available on Your Liquid Assets blog: http://yourliquidassets.blogspot.com/2011/04/every-day-is-mothers-day.html.

Whatever you are celebrating, have fun and enjoy. Next time – toasting Wills and Kate or, any excuse for a party.

Every day is Mother's Day

This Sunday, in case you need reminding, is Mother's Day. And yes, technically this is a religious festival and the mother in question is supposed to be the mother church. But try that line with the mum in your family, as you explain that there is no lie-in, breakfast in bed, slap up lunch or just a cheery bunch of flowers to look forward to and, well...don't say we didn't warn you.

A popular choice, at least in the two Heathers' households, is a nice bottle of something – and preferably something with a bit of sparkle to it. If you would like to follow suit, then in the interests of familial harmony, Heather D has conducted some entirely unscientific research on your behalf, to help guide you in your purchases.

A crack team of highly qualified tasters was assembled, ready to pit their finely tuned tastebuds against a selection of five popular pink fizzes, ranging in price from £7 to £37. In order for our, ahem, research session to stand up to scientific scrutiny, the wines were all tasted blind, so that the tasters did not know what they were drinking. The mums (for that was the entry qualification for this taste-off) slurped, sniffed and failed to spit out all the wines on your behalf and the results are produced here.

Good news, bad news

First the bad news – there were two pink Champagnes in our line-up and they came in first and second place in our results table. Top of the fizzy pops was Moët & Chandon Brut Rosé NV (RRP £36.99), followed by Veuve Clicquot Brut Rosé NV (same price). The mums rated these two above the others for their “light” and “dry” style, with some detecting a hint of blackcurrant in the Moët. A couple found a slight bitter aftertaste in the Veuve, but obviously found it pretty attractive overall.

The good news for hard up sons and daughters is that equal second place in the line-up was Jacob's Creek Sparkling Rosé, around £9.49 and widely available. “Very drinkable” was a phrase that cropped up when discussing this wine – though, come to think of it, “very drinkable” cropped up quite a bit throughout the tasting...hmmm.

Cava is often the fizz we go for when we're in a hurry, but can't afford the posh stuff. However, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Cava Rosada Brut Vintage (£7.99) was lacklustre on the night: “watery” and “crude” were just a couple of the damning comments it drew.

However disappointing the Cava, however, it did trounce the Millione Vino Frizzante from Italy (£7.97 from Sainsbury's and elsewhere). It's the kind of wine that you want to like, as it is a social enterprise, where each bottle sold contributes to humanitarian projects in Sierra Leone. Buying it might make you feel good, but drinking it, perhaps less so, if the comments of our tasters are anything to go by: “strange” and the pithily concise “yuk”.

The moral, dear readers: a bottle of Jacob's Creek would undoubtedly be welcome, but a smart pink Champagne has it beaten on looks and taste. And if the mum in your life appreciates the good things in life, the ultimate pink fizz is Bollinger Grande Année Rosé 2002, £85 from Selfridges. Pale salmon in colour, the lively strawberry fruit and hints of rose petals draw you in. Delicate, but with great depth of flavour, wonderful to sip on its own, yet equally lovely with suitably elegant food. Definitely a grand gesture wine, but you might get to share it, don't forget!

Along with the fizz, a favourite gift to accompany is a bunch of flowers – and sorry, our remit doesn't go as far as testing garage forecourt bunches versus an artistic creation from a proper florist. However, if you're plumping for that other standby, a box of choccies, then we are your, er, men.

In fact, the indefatigable Heather D went to far as to attend a wine and chocolate tasting – purely in the interests of research you understand. There were some brave matches (which is code for uh, no), including a pretty dry Riesling with an almond-cream filled milk chocolate. In our experience milk chocolate is so mouth-coatingly sweet that it's a tall order for any wine, red, white or fizzy to get along with it.

Much more successful is a really fruity red wine with dark chocolate – so the lady may love Milk Tray, but perhaps she should give Black Magic a try if she also likes a glass of red wine. We tried a dark chocolate praline with 2008 Penfold's Koonunga Hill 76 Shiraz Cabernet (RRP £10), which accomplished the neat trick of toning down the exuberant fruit of the wine and making the chocolate taste less sweet too.

However, the best match of the night was an Australian version of Tawny Port, served in this case with a ganache-filled dark chocolate – though I suspect just about any chocolate would work. The sweetness, power and layered nutty complexity of Tawny Port is THE wine to choose if you want to find a match made in heaven for your box of chocs. The Australian version we tasted is not currently available in the UK, but a 20 year old Tawny Port will have the right depth of raisin, nut and caramel flavours. The big names such as Graham's or Taylor's 20 year old tawnies are widely available for around £35. If your budget doesn't stretch that far, then a 10 year old such as Warre's Otima, widely available for around £13 for a 50cl bottle, may not have all the exquisite depth, but delivers plenty of rich nuttiness for the price.