Wines of the month

I wonder what the cricket-loving Sir Ian MacLaurin (who he?) makes of Tesco's latest food and wine wheeze: four wines called Great with Chicken, Great with Steak, Great with Pasta and Great with Fish? A cunning plan, judging by the number of "Great Withs" splashed across Tesco food products to get shoppers to whisk their trolleys to the wine department. With fish, I prefer the Greenwich Meridian 2000 White, pounds 4.99, Tesco, a catty Bordeaux sauvignon with clean, crisp grapefruity lines and zingy fruit flavours - not, incidentally, to be laid down for the millennium. And with chicken, steak or even pasta, a dash of oak-derived vanilla adds a dimension of flavour to the supple-textured 1994 Chateau Pigoudet Grande Reserve from the Coteaux d'Aix, pounds 5.49, a soft, attractively oaked Provencal blend of cabernet sauvignon with a touch of syrah.

Sainsbury's contribution to linking food with wine is a glossy, new free food and wine guide, suggesting which Sainsbury's wines go best with a variety of dishes. I would be happy with the 1996 Frascati Secco, San Marco, pounds 4.99, as a barbecue match for marinated monkfish and prawn brochettes, but this fragrant, refreshingly fruity Roman bianco would be at home with most seafood. Since its introduction last year, Sainsbury's deep-hued 1995 South African Reserve Selection Pinotage, pounds 5.45, has mellowed into a succulently ripe, blackberryish red with a supportive backbone of tannin.

South Africa's giant co-op, the KWV, is changing its spots by turning into a private company, and if the latest chardonnay is anything to go by, it seems to be re-constructing its wines too. The 1996 KWV Chardonnay, Western Cape, pounds 4.75, Waitrose, has been revitalised both in its classy new packaging and complex, barrel-induced complexity of freshness, flavour and richness. Australia's Tatachilla is another company turning itself around. From South Australia's McLaren Vale, the 1995 Tatachilla Cabernet Sauvignon, pounds 7.45, Waitrose, is a spicily oaked red whose suppleness of texture and vibrantly youthful blackcurrant flavours should give Bordeaux food for though.

Along with its market performance, the stock of Safeway's wines continues to go up. Here, the 1996 Domaine Vieux Manoir de Maransan, Cotes du Rhone, pounds 4.49, is a dry white Rhone skilfully blended from the local grenache, clairette, ugni blanc and roussanne grapes to make a deliciously textured, lime-zesty style. And from Langhorne Creek in South Australia, the 1994 Stonyfell Metala Shiraz /Cabernet Sauvignon, pounds 6.99 (also from Oddbins), made by Nigel Dolan, is a powerful Australian blend with succulently squashy berry flavours of the shiraz toned down by a dollop of restraining cabernet.

Whether or not it revels in its chairman, Archie Norman's, incarnation as Tory MP for Tunbridge Wells, Asda's wine department has been revolutionary in its marketing of wines by style and classy labels. The 1996 Peter Lehmann Barossa Valley Semillon, pounds 4.99, has a delicate, barrel-fermented aroma with an underlying zesty streak. Meanwhile, the southern hemisphere's half-year's advantage over Europe has softened the youthful 1996 Rowan Brook Cabernet Malbec, pounds 3.49, into a ripe, blackcurranty claret alternative.

Fizz of the month is Israel's Yarden Blanc de Blancs, pounds 9.99, Marks & Spencer. From the Golan Heights in Galilee, this is a stylish, good-value, champagne-method fizz, with an elegantly foamy mousse of textured bubbles backed by an astonishing degree of chardonnay flavour and richness