It's my kind of Valentine's Day this year. A lazy, stay-at-home Sunday, which with any luck may start with breakfast in bed and end with a deliriously self-indulgent little feast beside the fire. No drink-driving worries. No sulks (mine) or cynicism (his) about overbooked restaurants festooned with pink hearts but seriously deficient in likeable bottles. Even today's provisioning trip - choosing wines and nibbles to match - should be a labour of love.
If you're short of time, or maybe inspiration, there is one thing which meets the challenge of Rich Love, Romantic Love and Rushed Love all rolled together. No prizes for guessing it's champagne. Yes, there are a few unfathomable souls who don't like bubbles. I come across them now and again: even a fellow Irish wine writer confessed the other week that sparklers don't make her sparkle one iota. But happily, most people adore the festive, giddy feeling induced by a glass or two of champers. I'm especially weak in this regard myself ready to swear ridiculously constant love to any man who pops a cork on a well-chilled bottle of decent fizz.
The "decent" bit is important, though, and not just vacuous snobbery. Cheap champagne can be a bittersweet let-down, with confected, jarring flavours - usually because sugar is liberally added to make up for the bitterness of juice from inferior grapes, extracted for run-of-the-mill blends during a second or even a third pressing.
There are two wise alternatives. One is to fork out a few extra pounds for a reputable name (Veuve Clicquot, Charles Heidsieck, Pol Roger, Roederer, Billecart-Salmon, for instance: there are plenty more). The other is to buy a lesser name from a reputable source such as Bubble Brothers, the Cork duo who have made it their business to source reasonable champagnes from small growers at first hand and sell them by mail order. It may be a bit late now for them to solve your 1999 Valentine's crisis, but with next year in mind (Cupid limbered up by the millennium!), the essential information to store away is tel/fax 021 552252.
Snobbery may also level unfair charges, I suspect, against all the bottles of pink bubbly that are piled up, cliche-high, with hearts and flowers in shop displays right now. Naff, mutter the sophisticates, coming over all superior. But it's worth remembering that rose champagne or sparkling wine can be a delicious and brilliantly versatile drink which often goes better with food than its pale sister. The driest styles are great with brunch, or with Thai or Pacific Rim-influenced dishes. Fruitier versions slip down splendidly with desserts featuring red berries or chocolate.
Which brings us neatly on to Valentine's nectar. Sweeties for your sweet. Dessert wines, like champagne, are special occasion treats - at least for those of us who haven't quite managed to orchestrate a millionaire lifestyle yet. The good ones are luscious luxuries with such concentrated, thrilling flavours that you may remember the pleasure of sipping them years hence, with electrifying precision. Wildly generous lovers could do worse than hurry to Mitchells this very minute for a half bottle of Chateau d'Yquem 1990 (£99), which is pretty hard to beat.
But we shouldn't really call them dessert wines at all, as if they only went hand in hand with sticky toffee pudding or tiramisu (a dish Italian men swear by, incidentally, for amorous energy). Sweet wines can be equally stunning with certain savoury foods in the luxury department. Foie gras, for instance (see below) or, between very close friends who share a taste for it along with everything else, a smelly, salty blue cheese such as Roquefort.
What other wines might you cosy up to? Riesling is a good choice because it's such an exhilarating, invigorating drink - and one that's often quite low in alcohol, so it won't render you or the object of your desire unconscious prematurely. Viognier is another definite runner - a rich, sensuous white wine with a marked touch of exoticism. As for red wines, what better time to test the sexy, silky qualities of the sensualists' all-time favourite, Pinot Noir, which Burgundy still seems to handle with unbeaten subtlety and finesse?
By good fortune, all of these wines have a natural partner in John McKenna's line-up of quick food fixes for lovers. Pick and mix, according to your preferences, pausing only to reflect on the wise words of Euripides: "Where there is no wine, love perishes, and everything else that is pleasant to man.' Talk about an excuse on a plate! Have a happy, vinous V-Day.
For love beyond budgets
Champagne Bollinger Special Cuvee NV (widely available, usually about £34).
The caviar tartines need a big, dry champagne such as Krug (£75 upwards) or jolly old Bolly, a full-bodied star. It's excellent with food - but only the most wimpish of companions could fail to enjoy it without.
Pinot Gris, Grand Cru Osterberg, Selection de Grains Nobles, Domaine Sipp Mack, 1994 (Mitchells Kildare Street and Glasthule, 50cl bottle £21.60).
From Alsace, a dazzling alternative to good Sauternes at a more digestible price. This is a lovely, sweet wine: aromas of apricots, quinces, candied peel and that oddly alluring scent of noble rot; mouthfilling unctuousness, but a sharp cut of acidity in the long finish makes it as delicious with foie gras as with the apricot tart.
Heggies Viognier, Eden Valley, 1997 (Vintry Rathgar, Redmonds Ranelagh, McCabes Merrion, Foleys Cabinteely, Spar Ballybrack, SuperValu Raheny, Bennetts Howth, Pielows Enniskerry and some other outlets, usually £12.99).
Viognier is wonderful with scallops, crab, lobster. . . or by itself. The Yalumba winery in South Australia is now producing various versions, but for freshness and finesse this is the king.
For love with added sauce ...
Sancerre Les Chailloux, Lucien Crochet, 1996 (Terroirs Donnybrook, £13.99). Tomatoes - on toast or otherwise - fight bitterly with a lot of wines, but not Sauvignon Blanc. Why not enjoy it in deluxe form, in a smooth, well crafted Sancerre like this one from a highly rated producer? There's a dusting of white pepper in the long finish that's perfect for the toms.
Tokaji Aszu 5 Puttonyos, Royal Tokaji Wine Company, 1993 (DeVine Wine Shop Castleknock, Bennetts Howth, Kellys Artane, Vintry Rathgar, Noble Rot Navan, Mill Wine Cellar Maynooth, O'Keefes Kilkenny, Keegans Tullamore, Kellys Next Door Longford, Old Stand Mullingar, Fahys Ballina and other outlets, 50cl bottle about £17.50).
Tokaji. Aha! It's America's latest sex aid, according to Peter Vinding-Diers, the man who's helping to revive a flagging market. Viagra in a glass. It's also one of the most attractive sweet wines you'll ever taste - light and uplifting, when a great many are cloying. Apricot flavours match the tarte - but it's also a trendy choice for foie gras.
Savigny-les-Beaune, Moillard-Grivot, 1995/6 (McCabes Merrion, Redmonds Ranelagh, Grapes of Mirth Rathmines, usually about £15). For your Lavistown cheese - or anything else on your evening menu that calls for a fruitily plump, seductive red, here's a thoroughly attractive Burgundy at a very fair price. And that, heaven knows, is as elusive as everlasting love. . .
For love at a run
Green Point Rose, Domaine Chandon, 1995 (Redmonds Ranelagh, Vintry Rathgar, Dublin Wine Co, Malahide, Vineyard Galway and other outlets, £16.50-£17). This pink Australian sparkler tastes 20 times better than heaps of rose champagnes, somehow combining lovely ripe fruit with elegant restraint. Try it with the smoked salmon and avocado tortilla.
Dr F. Weins-Prum Graacher Himmelreich Riesling QbA, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, 1995 (many SuperValus/Centras including Carrigaline, Macroom, Kanturk, Midleton, Clonakilty; also Karwigs Wine Warehouse Carrigaline, Molloys Liquor Stores, McCabes Merrion, Grapes of Mirth Rathmines, Macs Liquor Store Limerick, Geraghty's Fine Wines Carlow, usually £8.49). You could knock back a glass or two of this refreshingly light, versatile Riesling as an aperitif and save the rest for your apple croissant midnight snack. See Bottle of the Week.
News from Down Under. . .
Australia's current thinking was recently revealed at Ireland's first Australian Wine Seminar, attracting a big turnout from trade and press. Paul Van der Lee, chief executive of Mitchelton, explained the key points in Strategy 2025, the industry's vision of the future. (More branded and artisan wines, better quality, less bulk.) David Combe, international vicepresident of Southcorp, looked at the global implications. (Consolidation of supermarket chains internationally driving the consolidation of distrib utor networks. More big mergers, in other words, squeezing out minnows). Phil Laffer, chief winemaker of Orlando-Wyndham, spoke about viticultural advances. Most intriguing of all, Michael Hill-Smith of Shaw and Smith unveiled Australia's regional specialities, of which there are more and more. Hunter Semillon, Clare Riesling, Great Western Shiraz, Goulburn Valley Marsanne? Watch this space. . .
New Zealand had 27 of its wineries pouring samples at Ireland's third Annual New Zealand Wine Fair in the Coach House of Dublin Castle. It was interesting to see how fierce heat and drought in 1998 tended to stifle the zesty, pungently herbaceous character for which Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc is famous and fought over: only the most skilful winemakers managed to cling on to some typicity in a vintage when Marlborough was hotter than Australia's Barossa Valley. The good news, they promise, is that we'll see some terrific 1998 reds from New Zealand in a few years' time.