Apparently, nearly 90% of wine is consumed on the day it is purchased. Of all those carpe diem bottles, three-quarters are bought in supermarkets which essentially sell four types of wine: brands, own brands, private brands and, er … non-branded wines. Depressed? Don’t worry – the likes of Blossom Hill are not exactly in a monopoly situation, altough the top 10 brands together account for about a third of the total market in the UK.

Not everything in the garden is rosy but just how lucky are we wine consumers these days? Consider a wine we’ll call Windy Bottom Semillon-Chardonnay which at a bit under a fiver is around the UK average price for a bottle (it’s often £3.99 on special offer though). It’s made from a blend that many would consider to be old hat; it’s imported in tanker from “South-East Australia” – a pointless term that means it could be from anywhere (and everywhere) in Oz except the far, far west – and bottled in Northampton, that well-known centre of vinous excellence; it probably had oak chips floating about in it at some point to give a veneer of barrel ageing. And it’s sold by a German-owned discounter.

It is a wine that ticks no boxes. And you know what? I like it quite a lot. It has sunny tropical aromas, a balance of tarry dryness and succulent white fruit and enough acidity (quite probably out of  a packet) to keep everything upstanding. Any wine needs at least two strings to its bow and this has three. And the really great thing is that, as Tommy Cooper’s psychiatrist replied when the great man asked him if it was normal to be channeling Tom Jones – “It’s not unusual …”

Wine writers in general enjoy bashing all the supermarkets except the one or two who are performing best at any given time. It’s a very Britsh way of keeping up the pressure on standards – it’s the same process that makes the NHS so amazing – but any notional graph of improved quality over the last 20 years shows a very steep line indeed – out of all possible recognition in fact. It’s because of the buying power of the supermarkets that bulk, cheap wine is so good these days but, then again, the downside is that it makes lots of people think there’s no point spending more than a fiver …

We’ll look at the big brands next time. Meanwhile, check out the “Grogan’s Heroes” post for some amazing value wines from the supermarkets – they’re all under six quid. (I’d put a link to it here if I wasn’t so hilariously incompetent – but typing the phrase into the search box and then scrolling down seems to get you there!)

cabernet sauvignon – my dad was never a major wine man – people weren’t in the ‘fifties, ‘sixties and ‘seventies, it was beer and spirits (as in”how many fingers, George?”) – but he would put an expensive (and probably awful) bottle of Châteauneuf or Gevrey-Chambertin on the table on high days and holidays. Even so, I’m by no means sure that he would have been able to come up with the name of a single grape variety. Things change and nowadays everyone will tell you their favourites and the first name of a red wine grape to pass most of their lips will have been that of the king – cabernet sauvignon.

Appropriately, it’s a relatively “new” grape, and the discovery in 1999 that it is a cross, which probably occurred in seventeenth-century Bordeaux, between sauvignon blanc and cabernet franc, explained much of its character. The young, headstrong prince makes wines marked by the same intensity in everything that franc has – colour, body, aroma, flavour and length – but these fruity, blackcurrant- juicy wines often have a tell-tale touch of green in the aromas – mint, bell-pepper or eucalyptus – obvious when you know about the sauvignon blanc. They are typically at the lowish end of alcohol scale and can lack acidity, especially in warmer places in New World countries. Many are dense with extract and tannin and are best drunk with food but a cabernet without age, like Prince Hal “smothers up his beauty from the sun.” Long maturation, first in the best oak and then in bottle, softens everything and, in common with other ageworthy grapes, the better it gets the less it tastes of fruit – it’s what the fruit turns into that’s the really interesting part.

The world seems to have overlooked the fact that, in its castle in Bordeaux’s left bank, cabsauv is always accompanied by its court – one or more of merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot is the “foil to set if off” – but it’s the “single varietal” wines, made everywhere from Chile to China to the Cape, that have been the pretenders to the throne, with Australia’s Coonawarra and California’s Napa Valley getting closest to a coup. Cabernet certainly makes very different styles in the different terroirs of Bordeaux but blending gives the matrix a third dimension as makers of early Supertuscans – who blend with sangiovese amongst others – worked out early on.

Old and complex, King Cab in his ermine-lined crown of oak settles on the scarlet velvet cushion of his throne – the edges tinged with brick from long service – sets before us a dish of red fruits stewed with cassis, rich with herbs and roasted spices, licorice and truffles, then freshens our breath with a Parma violet and proffers a cedar-lined box from which to pluck a fine cigar to enjoy with coffee and dark chocolates. All hail the King!