"The grapes arrive at the winery facing the rising sun, the natural slope is exploited to allow the wine to move by gravity, and the light, in line with the concepts of feng shui, compensates for the negativity of dark, enclosed spaces." I haven't mentioned the cow horn filled with dung, the deer bladder stuffed with yarrow or the lunar calendar. For lunar, read loony. For certified, certifiable. That's no doubt how many sane people regard biodynamics.

The most poignant moment of a recent fact-finding wine trip to Croatia was the sight of a giant pock-marked water tower at Vukovar on the Danube on the drive back to Zagreb airport. The Croatian national flag was flying from its summit as a constant reminder of a not-so-distant turbulent period in the history of this beautiful country. It brought home one of the main reasons why Croatian wine remains the dark horse of Europe, for the time being at least.

I recently fossicked out a bottle of the obscure and no longer extant Heidt et Fils Carte Blanche Champagne lurking in an ill-lit corner of the cellar. Being hopeless at cellar records, I had no recollection of how long it had been there, nor whence it had come. It soon became clear from the shrunken shaft of the cork that it was a fizz probably somewhere between 15 and 20 years old. The golden colour, gentle mousse but above all the deliciously evolved nutty flavours and an ever so slightly sherryish whiff, confirmed that it was a wine of venerable age.

It was while taking a leak in the rest room of the Blue Frog Cantina in Fairfield, Atlanta, that Bill Leigon spotted the charming Belle Epoque poster of a winged bicycle with a nubile nymph clutching its handlebars. Mr. Leigon, president of California’s Hahn Estates winery in Monterey, took an instant fancy to the late 19th century poster created for the Montmartre-based French bicycle manufacturer, Fernand Clément et Cie, by Frenchman G. Massias. As any astute brand manager might, he turned it into a wine label and called the wine Cycles Gladiator. The brand now sells 200,000 cases.

‘A glass of rosé, please luv.’ ‘Sure, but hang on a sec while I open two bottles’, replies’ the barmaid without batting a mascara-ed eyelid. Thanks to today’s cornucopia of rosés to choose from, there’s no need to blend a red and a white together any more to obtain the desired pink colour. On the other hand, the very proliferation of rosés makes it less clear just what you’re getting. Yes, it’s pink alright, that much we know, but its very pinkness is a cunning disguise.

Big chill: The perfect al fresco bottles for a summery picnic

2008 Pikes The White Mullet, Clare Valley

Moderate in body for an Australian dry white at 12 per cent alcohol, this unholy alliance of riesling, viognier, sauvignon blanc and chenin blanc somehow works, combining a floral fragrance with voluptuously textured peach and nectarine fruit flavours, topped off on the finish with the fresh, palate-cleansing citrusy undertones of the riesling. Made for the great outdoors.

It’s not normally the job of this column to regale you with the horror stories of wines tasted on your behalf so that you don’t have to. While wine writing is the job everyone except my teetotal aunt wants, especially those who don’t regard it as a job at all, it does have its pitfalls, and weeding out the sheep from the goats is one of them.

Among the usual eBay prohibited suspects of drugs and human parts, one thing you can’t buy and sell is alcohol, because you need a licence. Or couldn’t. Recently though, there’s been a spate of new web-based initiatives, offering the opportunity to buy or sell wines without going through the cumbersome procedure of the auction house or traditional wine broker. How to price your wine or what to pay? Helpfully, there are also sites giving you the market price of your wine or a wine you’re thinking of buying.

It’s a fair bet that when Barack Obama sipped the 1998 Nyetimber Blanc de Blancs served on his recent visit to Britain, compliments will have been duly showered on his host like confetti. It’s an open secret that despite the stigma that sill attaches to English wine, England can more than hold its head high in the sparkling wine stakes. With more than 100 awards doled out this year in the UK’s consumer wine competitions, English wines, sparkling wines in particular, have harvested a bumper crop.

Gather a group of wine writers together, or sponge as we of the species are collectively known, and you can be sure that one of the abiding topics of conversation, ourselves apart, is the awfulness of that form of low life known as the PR. Unless they’re inviting you to The Square or biking over a sample of Bollinger Rosé, and how often does that happen, all they’re seemingly good for is bolstering the fragile journalistic ego. Yet malign them as we like to, there are those whose professional spoonfeeding makes life a glass half full for us.