Bill Baker, country wine merchant extraordinaire, was a rare blend of gourmet and gourmand. In his outsize pinstripe suit and trademark red braces, he was a regular and idiosyncratic fixture of the London wine tasting scene. Visible from afar, his ample figure was so well known by the wine trade that if he was nowhere to be seen at one of the London trade tastings, he was conspicuous by his absence. Yet there was a lot more to the proverbial legend in his own lunchtime than an ever-expanding girth.

Excuse me if I warn you before you read on that this week’s column could seriously damage your health. If you think our attitude to alcohol in the UK is ambivalent, you need look no further than across the Channel to see that the French have got their culottes in an even more serious twist. A Parisian court recently found that an editorial piece in Le Parisien entitled ‘The Triumph of Champagne’ should be considered as advertising.

If you think our attitude to alcohol in the UK is ambivalent, you need look no further than across the Channel to see that the French have got their culottes in an even more serious twist. A Parisian court recently found that an editorial piece in Le Parisien newspaper entitled "The Triumph of Champagne" should be considered as advertising. As a result, the judge found, newspaper articles on wine should be subject to the same health and safety guidelines as alcohol advertising and display health warnings.

Saying ‘Bâtard’ to a Frenchman as I did a couple of weeks ago isn’t as offensive as it sounds as long as he happens to be a Burgundian and what you’re asking for, s’il vous plaît et merci beaucoup, is a taste of his (horribly expensive) Bâtard Montrachet. So it was in mid-January when a host of Burgundy growers put on their best blousons and flew to London to show off their 2006 red and white burgundies at various wine merchants’ venues around town. The fabulous 2005 vintage was a hard act to follow, so 2006 has, as vintages tend to do when they follow great ones, been overshadowed.

Clouds on the wine horizon? They wish. As if to demonstrate that Australia currently has water on the brain, the inch of rain that fell like manna from Santa Claus on the Saturday before Christmas Day was writ large in newspaper headline joy. At least until temperatures returned to furnace levels on New Year’s Eve, for just a short while you didn’t have to shower with a bucket to keep the flower beds watered or worry that your dog might get a nasty bite from a thirsty snake.

Are higher wine prices on the horizon for 2008? The pressure is building. Short harvests in key wine producing countries like Australia and Italy are likely to have a knock-on effect on prices and the capacity of the supermarkets to continue discounting. And a powerful new temperance lobby calling itself the Alcohol Health Alliance is pushing for raising taxes to discourage under-age binge drinking. They are also holding out for warning labels, but maybe they should take a leaf out of the Burgundy-loving David Blunkett’s book.

When the Spanish winemaker Miguel Torres first declared Chile to be a viticultural paradise back in the late 1970s, the world sat up and took notice. Indeed, with its natural advantages of constant sunshine and irrigation from the melted snow of the Andes, why shouldn't the grape flourish?

We soon found that this South American nation could deliver every bit as much fruit from the classic French varieties of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, merlot and cabernet sauvignon as Australia or California. And it was cheaper.

Ah, the joys of the detox. Is it just me, or is an apple a day not enough any more to keep the doctor away? Or should that be five pieces of fruit? Maybe I should just give up. Except that now it’s January, it’s time for the annual cleansing of mind and body, not forgetting the soul of course, whose conscience, after all, is as much in need of its annual injection of virtue.

I check into The Sampler in Islington's Upper Street, where Dawn Mannis thrusts a smart card into one hand and a glass into my other. I slot it into a stainless steel, glass-fronted cabinet holding eight bottles, press the button above the sign reading Sancerre, and hey presto! It obligingly dispenses a 25cl serving, deliciously chilled. I try the Pouilly Fumé beside it, moving on to the next dispenser for a white burgundy and a New World chardonnay. Just as well I'm spitting. Next stop the 2004 Ata Rangi Pinot Noir, a Charmes Chambertin, then on to Spanish and Italian.

If you've been more dazed and confused than usual ambling up and down the wine aisle at your local Tesco, blame it on Dan Jago and his accomplice, wine manager Jason Godley, because a warehouseload of their new wines has just hit the shelves. Godley claims that their new range makes it "the most diverse and exciting supermarket range in the UK". This could be taken with a large pinch of Maldon's, given the demise of Safeway and the apparent inertia at Asda, Somerfield and Morrisons. But as it still leaves Waitrose as the supermarket list to beat, a gauntlet of sorts has been thrown down.