I plumped for this Central Otago Pinot Noir at £9.99. A price point which, in riot torn Salford, apparently requires a security tag. How many bottles of wine can you actually smuggle out in your underpants? And how many rioters would actually dare to choose a Kiwi Pinot?

On opening, this gave me a kick in the gonads. Tasted very purple and metallic, lacking the usual NZ zing and yet overly acidic. It also tasted bitter, although funnily enough this matched my culinary creation in which I had accidentally caramelised the mustard.

As the wine aired and warmed it improved ever so slightly but I can’t justify a sou short of a tenner for this Penguin from near Antarctica, when there are better and cheaper options from South America (witness Concha y Toro/Casillero del Diablo).

One of the problems of writing about feline urolagnia is where to place the apostrophe.  I mean how many cats do you want to fill your pissoir?  Or is it more pure, and less disgusting, to think of a single cat’s pee as the sole occupant of your bottle?

Actually this is quite tart.  In addition to cats, there is evidence of gooseberry and grapefruit and just a little too much tongue tingling, lip squelching, palate stripping acidity.  Whilst I have since made up with the Society, personally I am a bit disappointed with the wine.  There are much better Kiwi SB’s around at a lower price than the £12.95 that my bank manager credited to the Wine Society.

Could there be any clearer signals that the double dip is on the way?  When it comes to recession theory, I firmly believe in the BIG W.  The other big W in my life belongs to Bacchus.  But how much longer will I be able to subscribe to the President’s Cellar?  Pretty much the only wine I buy from the Sunday Times Wine Club these days, and the only circumstance in which I relinquish the responsibility of choice, delivers 6 secret bottles every 6 months at about £20 a head.

The good thing about President’s Cellar is that the wines are usually selected to be ready for drinking, but also good for another 5-10 years.  I can salt a few bottles away for hard times to come, yet enjoy an odd bottle now so that I don’t have to bequeath all my most expensive alcohol to some undeserving bastard.

Julicher Pinot Noir is one that I am not sure whether to drink or bequeath.  On opening there is a really strong smell of glacé cherries and compost.  The taste is incredibly rich for a Pinot Noir, many of which could rightly be accused of being a bit thin.

I would recommend chilling quite aggressively to get the best flavour.  I drank at <10°C and that made it enjoyable with leek and potato soup and a rustic omelette.  Bit too jammy to finish the bottle once the food was over, though.

Over the last few years, I’ve been experimenting with drinking it at different stages of youth.  I have just opened a 2007 and discovered a wrinkly old fella.  Tastes flat and tired,- no zing or spring in its step.  Notes of cardboard, straw and sour lemon.

Conversely I find baby Cloudy Bay, on release, a bit uninspiring.  Almost too fresh and grassy.

So I have concluded that my favourite time to drink this Kiwi standard is about 12-18 months after release where I find the classic cats’ piss, gooseberries and lots of fresh zingy grapefruit.

Has anyone tried this with other Kiwi Sauvignon Blancs?

Respondents pointed out that I may have treated the wine with less than the respect I would reserve for David Hohnen, at least in terms of preparation of my dining table and wine servature.

I have just spanked the last of three bottles, and this one has been slightly chilled and stood upright for four days.  But it still looks and, more importantly tastes, cloudy.

The flavours are fine, almost lovely.  But the mouthfeel is more Myrtle Beach than Mâcon Rouge.  Taste quite nice, texture not for me.  Sorry, not for £18.

From the Wine Society at £20, it tastes of cinnamon, stewed fruit and rotting veg.  Hits most Pinot Noir benchmarks but possibly a bit rich at that price.

And like The Ring, the natural home of Riesling is the Federal Republic of Engineers.  But at the risk of you thinking I have Teutonic Plague, my favourite Rieslings have come from Australia so far.  Just don’t tell anyone, please.

This one is from New Zealand and seemed worth a try at £9.50 from the Wine Society.

Even as a Muggle, I like to experiment and, if you don’t mind me mixing my Potterphors, Middle Earth seems as good a place as any to grow floral, fruity grapes.

The wine reminded me of sweet, almost stewed, apples.  A good balance between fruit, acidity and medium sweetness.  I enjoyed it with Cream of Mushroom Soup (yes, I know, Heinz), and a spot of Brie.  Very good match.

But all work and no play makes Wino a dull boy so to brighten my spirits I picked out an expensive bottle from the Combine Harvester to end the weekend.

Drinking wine whilst ones stomach is in muscular spasms carries a certain perverse pleasure.  The battle that ensues as the alcohol tries to unwind the coiled muscle creates an uneasy equilibrium of pleasure and pain.  It’s like being thumb-screwed whilst Marilyn Monroe (as Sugar in Some Like It Hot) snogs you senseless.

As for the wine, it is fresh zingy raspberries and meringue – totally delicious, especially with lamb chops.  But worth £29?  I am not the heir to the Shell Oil Company after all.

I see that the Sunday Times Wine Club has dropped the 2008 to a more reasonable £23.  Even Daphne could afford to slip a bottle inside her double bass at that price.  Let’s just hope Spats Colombo doesn’t find it.

Imagine my delight then, when I discovered that Oliver Sweeney has been bought out of administration!  I haven’t purchased a pair for a couple of years (but still own numerous), so maybe I am in some small way responsible for their near demise.  Mind you my temporary desertion of my favourite footwear brand was not purely for economic reasons.  I thought the designs lost their way.  Brands are about consistency of product, not advertising.  Any clever agency can get you to try a product once but loyalty is expressed in repeat sales and recommendations, which only come from over-delivery of the promise.

You could consider wines to be micro brands and I was not that impressed by the product quality of a 2008 Mahi Pinot Noir.  Will the Sauvignon Blanc resole my trust, or leave me with a hole in my shoe?

The back of the label is full of unnecessary pretentious marketing nonsense.  It costs £11.50 from the Wine Society which is a good whack in the goolies for a Kiwi Sauvignon.  Omens not good.

Actually the wine is very drinkable and a bit different from a lot of the bog standard Marlborough whites.  It is subtle yet zingy, and tastes mostly of pink grapefruit and lemon.  Short on cats’ piss but long on dogs’ bollocks.

I know it is desperately unfashionable, but if, as I do, you still like New Zealand Sauvignon, it’s worth mixing a couple of these in your rack with your Cloudy Bays, and Dog Points.  Yum.

Realising that Burgundy Pinots have almost impenetrable reputations, New Zealand winemakers took a radical stance.  Screwcap closures combined with young drinkable zingy wines were palatable in both flavour and fashion.  This meant prices vied with Ugg Boots for the captain of the Fashion Victim Rest of the World XI, whilst production and maturation costs were relatively low.  Still innovation pays, or ought to.

The label on this wine explains that it was bottled “unfiltered”.  A better description might be “cloudy” and not in the “bay” sense.

Maybe this is just a faulty bottle.  It didn’t taste awful, but then again it fell way short of remarkable and certainly not worth the £18 The Wine Society sent a congratulatory letter of thanks to my bank manager for.

I have another bottle somewhere – I will try that and report back.