I'VE just spent a week in Greece (when the temperatures were higher for a couple of days in globally-warmed-up Manchester), enjoying the food more than I expected but finding the wine just dull.

The chilled retsina - described by a colleague as like sucking a Christmas tree - filled a gap, but it was good to be back in my Pennine garden, the lawn springing from neglected to challenging, deciding what's best for outdoor quaffing this spring.

OK, let's start at the top - pink champagne. I had a wedding anniversary as an excuse for splashing out on Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Non-vintage Rose. é42.99 (ouch).

This rose, pictured, is a soft, round, exotically-scented delight, dominated by 55 per cent pinot noir in the blend, reeking of raspberry and cherry. Veuve Clicquot was the first champagne house to commercialise pink bubbly in 1775 and few rivals match it. Available from Selfridges and independent wine merchants.

On a more affordable level, fine New Zealand sauvignon blanc is essential for spring drinking. Nobilo is an old favourite and two splendid examples don't disappoint. The Nobilo Regional Collection Blanc 2005 is an intense fruit cocktail of passionfruit, lemon and peach (é6.99 from Sainsburys, Tesco and Thresher).

More austere, with a succulent grapefruit tang, is the Nobilo Five Fathoms Sauvignon Blanc 2005 (Sainsburys, é5.79). Both highly recommended.

Intensity

A lovely rival, without quite the intensity, is the Vidal Wines Sauvignon Blanc East Coast 2005 (Threshers, é6.99). Still, the limey, capsicum flavours offer a savoury accompaniment to seafood.

Chile's Anakena has been a consistent provider of simple, fruit-driven whites - and, occasionally wines a mite more complex. This week's balmy evening provided the perfect excuse to test them out again.

The perfect antidote to some serious lawn-rescue mowing (the moss blossomed while I was in Greece) came in the form of the Anakena Chardonnay-Viognier 2005 (an apricot-pineappley snip at é4.99 from the Co-op).

More serious are two Anakena reserve wines available from Threshers and Wine Rack. The 2004 Single Vineyard Viognier (é8.49) has been aged in French oak barrels for five months. This straw-coloured treasure offers an extra burst of apricot fruit over the blend.

Even tastier was the 2003 Reserve Merlot, produced from hand-picked Rapel Valley fruit with 50 per cent of the wine aged in a combination of French and American oak for six months. And it shows. Clove and chocolate dominate the nose before dark-fruit kicks in on the palate. Lovely, for é7.49. Tweet