Drink your way round the world without budging an inch. Taking that wine trip of a lifetime is entirely possible this month, without spending a fortune, simply by selecting bottles that transport you to another place, another time.

Seasoned wine travellers don’t just buy bottles that whisk them back to a favourite destination, but serve the food they ate abroad to make their taste trip even more memorable. This need not be complicated – it could be an appetiser such as a seaside-scented manzanilla sherry with anchovy and pimento-stuffed Spanish olives. The brave might manage a bone-dry French pink now with a bowl of fresh prawns and garlicky aïoli to recreate some of Provence’s perfection.

One myth that needs to be debunked is the old chestnut that wine doesn’t travel. In this high-tech age, even everyday wine happily makes the journey from holiday destination to your table, provided you let it rest up, horizontally, in the cool and dark for a week or so before opening it. The wine that doesn’t is the rough holiday hooch your relaxed vacation self sank without criticism while being distracted by the scenery.

In winter, my travels with wine take in lots of New World bottles, as their ripe, sunny flavours, extra alcohol and vibrant fruit all help to cheer up cold, grey days. The New World lags behind Europe in mapping its finest sites and soils, but that does not mean that the sense of place, including soil, climate and slope – the French notion of terroir – is lacking in these mostly southern hemisphere wines. Anyone trying the wonderful 2006 d’Arenberg Ironstone Pressings Grenache (Oddbins, £24.99; selected Waitrose, £25), grown in a patch of McLaren Vale dirt in South Australia rich in ironstone, will understand. It is a robust yet tangy red that tastes precisely of the soil it comes from. Transport grenache, or garnacha, grapes back to Spain, and equally venerable vines at Calatayud in the north make an equally toothsome but very different peppery red in the 2007 La Sabrosita Old Vine Garnacha (Marks & Spencer, £4.39).

Winter whites need to burst with flavour to cope with the cold. I still have fond memories of a long, hot, humid drive through the spectacular Western Australia countryside to the Great Southern region. Tesco’s Finest 2008 Tingleup Great Southern Riesling is as spectacular as the scenery it comes from, all spicy, verdant, kerosene-scented fruit, given away at £6.99. Compare and contrast it with the German original, a gorgeous, ripe, waxy yet steely, petrol and peach-stashed 1994 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese from Dr Hermann, one of the Mosel’s great vineyards (Majestic Wine, £8.99; buy two for £7.99 each).

jane.macquitty@thetimes.co.uk

2007 Berrys’ Good Ordinary White, Bordeaux, France, Berry Bros & Rudd (0800 2802440), down to £4.95 until February 17. A delicious sauvignon blanc-dominant dry white bordeaux, topped up with sémillon, delivering mouthwateringly vibrant, herby, grapefruit zest-spiked fruit.

2006 Berrys’ Own Selection Australian Shiraz, Barossa, Berry Bros & Rudd, down to £5.75 until February 17. Aussie wines aren’t all old hat, as this astonishingly ripe, sweet, creamy, perfumed shiraz proves. Its violet scent and berry fruit make it a good game red, especially with venison casserole.

2007 Les Orris Rouge, Vin de Pays des Côtes Catalanes, Vignerons du Château de Calce, France, Marks & Spencer, down to £5.99 until January 31. Les Orris is a consistently good 50-50 carignan and grenache blend, fermented cool to retain its youthful exuberance, and now delivering fat, spicy, herby fruit with wide winter appeal.

2008 Clairault Estate Sauvignon Blanc, Margaret River, Western Australia, Marks & Spencer, down to £7.99 until January 31. I’m a big fan of Margaret River wines, and Clairault Estate makes some of the best. Lap up this flowering currant-stashed sauvignon, a welcome change from the Kiwi version.

2008 Blind River Sauvignon Blanc, Awatere Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand, Oddbins, £11.99. There is precious little of this newly arrived duo about, so Blind River devotees need to move fast to secure this sparky sauvignon with leafy flavours to the fore and tropical fruit on the finish.

2007 Blind River Pinot Noir, Awatere Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand, Oddbins, £17.99. Even finer than the sauvignon, this carefully crafted, French oak-aged, part wild yeast-fermented pinot clearly has Burgundy in its sights, and oozes ripe, plummy, gamey, feral spice.

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