Wine: Sweet relief

Maybe it was because the Harveys Bristol Cream van used to draw up outside our headmaster's house that I grew up thinking sherry was fit only for vicars, aunts and schoolmasters. I never imagined sherry might re-invent itself as a great appetite whetter. Witness the wine lists of the likes of Le Café Anglais or Moro and it's plain to see that, chilled down and drunk with salted almonds or olives, there's not much to beat a refreshing fino or tangy dry manzanilla like Hidalgo's La Gitana, around £7.49, widely available. So is sherry the exception to the rule that the wines of yesteryear are best left gathering dust?

It's hard to work up a nostalgic lather for the Seventies, an era of such cheerless sugar water as Blue Nun Liebfraumilch, not forgetting the awful Hirondelle, rustic Bulls Blood, confected pink Anjou rosé, bland Piat d'Or and the pretensions of Mouton Cadet. Lutomer Laski Riesling was the first wine I recall with the name of the place and the grape variety on the label, but when it turned out to be the central European impostor olasz riesling and not rhine riesling, it was downgraded by the EU to the unfortunate rizling.

Rioja was the first wine I remember enjoying in quantity, Paternina's Banda Azul Rioja to be precise. It cost £1.99 from Victoria Wine (RIP) and was all the sweeter for the 5 per cent discount by the case. For a week in November, it was fun, too, to glug beaujolais nouveau: the wine that launched a thousand lorries. The nubile red from the wooden vats of Lyonnais sausage country started out unpretentiously, but someone forgot to turn off the taps and by the 1990s, nouveau had become old hat. Soave had its moment, and chianti – until the wicker flask became the naffest tablecloth adornment of every third-rate spagbol valpol trattoria. Lambrusco lived long in the memory only for its humble screwcap, an idea before its time.

Some of the old brands have made brave attempts to stage a comeback. Piat d'Or has had a makeover by raising its status from vin de table to vin de pays, Blue Nun changed the habit of a lifetime with a new label and a slight improvement on the sugar water of yore. Good old Mateus Rosé has had a revamp, while Black Tower celebrated the fact that Big Brother's Jade Goody championed its cause. It's even launched a new sparkling wine in a can. The problem is that the old brands come with too much baggage. They've been overtaken, first by the supermarkets with their own respectable labels, and secondly by the New World revolution.

I'm not sure if it was the Paul Masson carafe that helped launch the New World order, but it was certainly the precursor of enjoyable California brands like the raspberryish 2005 Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel, £8.99, Majestic, Oddbins, Waitrose. Added to the excitement of Australian chardonnay and New Zealand sauvignon blanc, the discovery that the grape variety gave us a handle on the style and flavour of the wine was immensely helpful. Like Jacob's Creek Chardonnay, widely available at around £5.95, Montana Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc – the aromatic, gooseberryish 2007 is down to £5.99 from £7.49, Morrisons, to 9 March, Sainsbury's, to 11 March – has kept its taste and credibility.

South America and, latterly South Africa, have banged the last nails in the coffin for the underperforming European brands. We've had consistently flavour-filled Chilean reds like Casillero del Diablo's 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz, £8.99, Morrisons, and juicy Argentinian malbecs such as the 2005 Argento malbec, £5.99, widely available. So let's be thankful that, at least where wine's concerned, we've reached the point of no return.