Wine Box: Picnic partners

Whether you live in Mayfair, Mile End, Bayswater or Brixton, the effect on Londoners of blue skies and a hint of warmth on the skin is remarkable. Your bijou two-bed conversion turns from palace to prison. You want to get out - to anywhere with fields.

That faint bucolic lure of a few acres of foot-and-mouth-free countryside grows to a passion. Some of us might head for the nearest well-equipped Home Counties hotel, where the weekend revolves around restaurant, gym and digital TV, with not a pair of wellies in sight.

But for rural diehards, nothing can escape that need to picnic. Yes, it's like planning a small war. Logistics include map, compass, footpath guide, extensive hamper, utensils, brollies, blankets and, of course, a copious supply of wine (for which an insulated box, well stocked with those blue freezing blocks, is essential).

Having muscled your way through bracken and brier, suffered that adrenaline rush when you realise that 'cow' was, in fact, a bull, you arrive at your appointed picnic site. Why not open a bottle of...

Mo?t & Chandon Brut Ros? (Safeway, Vintage House, Soho Wines, Harrods, £25.99). With a post-millennial lake of cheap champers sloshing around Europe you might justifiably ask 'Why pay this sort of price for fizz?' Well, good pink champagne is seldom cheap and this much-improved Mo?t is no exception. But, for the money, you get a lively, clean and expressive wine which has vivid aromas of wild strawberries and spice, and a palate zinging with redcurrant and nectarine. An ideal partner for Mediterranean-style dishes. Bring on those vine-ripened tomatoes with basil in virgin olive oil. Great picnic stuff.

Ch?teau de Caraguilhes Rose 2000, Corbi?res (Waitrose, £6.99). Yet more evidence that we Brits are crazy not to drink more ros?. This is a vibrant, fruity, well-balanced mix of organic Syrah and Grenache grapes grown on a beautiful, isolated estate in the Boutenac region of Corbi?res. It has a delicious earthy/spicy quality which makes it very different to many humdrum ros?s. Excellent with salads and fruit.

Casa Leona Chardonnay 2000 (M&S, £4.99). Another brilliantly made, cheap, unoaked white from Chile's Vina La Rosa. Fully ripe fruit gives hints of tropical fruit but the overriding flavour is of peaches soaked in honeysuckle. Terrific value - you might have to pay at least two quid more for its equal elsewhere in the world. Keep the cork in the bottle at your picnic otherwise the local wasp population will join you - they'll like it, too.