There's little more personal than taste in wine. When I was a child and French wines were affordable and all-pervasive, I remember my father arguing with his friends over the merits of Bordeaux over Burgundy. At today's prices you might as well argue whether a diamond is preferable to a sapphire. I get good Bordeaus and Burgundies so rarely these days that I'm quite simply grateful for the chance to drink either. Most of the time I drink New World wines; wines from Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It pays to get to know some of the names, because you can buy a wine from these countries whose French equivalent would cost between 50% and 100% more.

As the market in Ireland grows ever more open and French wines lose more of their dominance, these New World wines can be found in every supermarket and off-license. The choice is so large that it's easy to be intimidated and revert to a French classic simply out of habit. New World wines are different in style from the classic European wines. Fruity tastes and aromas are more in evidence since many of these countries are producing wines in warmer climates than their European counterparts. It's interesting to take a varietal like Chardonnay - a wine made from a single grape variety - and compare a wine made in a cooler climate, for example Burgundy, with one made in a hotter climate, for example Australia. Apart from the fact there may well be differences in the vinification, you can really taste the difference in the wine that a more mature grape creates. It hits the palate quicker and harder, but the intensity of flavour often lasts less time. In general, a cooler climate chardonnay will be less instant on the palate, it'll have a slower build up of flavour, but the tastes will remain longer.

Now that South Africa is no longer a pariah state many of their fine wines can be bought in Ireland. South African reds can be quite superb. It might be worth taking a wine like Meerlust Rubicon that is generally accepted as being a fine example of South African wine-making just to see if that particular style of wine is to your taste. Plaisir de Merle and Klein Constantia are wines in a similar mould and are to some extent indicative of what's on offer. The three I've mentioned are wines that stood out in a wine tasting I went to in Cape Town. The white Plaisir de Merle is affordable and good, but for a real treat the winery of Klein Constantia make a dessert wine called Vin de Constance, which is one of world's greats.

Generally speaking Chardonnay does well in Australia and the Australians have been at the forefront of new methods of vinification including anaerobic, which is done in sealed vats with no oxygen. This is particularly effective with white wines, as it results in much of fruity flavours being retained. Apart from ripe grapes, this method has resulted in the style of wine that is common in Australia - that full, rich bouquet and heavy perfume - now being copied in Europe. These are easy-drinking wines that are immediately acceptable - a quality that for some is to their detriment, since it's possible to become tired eventually of such instant appeal. Despite this caveat I'm very fond of Aust ralian whites, perhaps more so than the reds, where I prefer more complexity of flavour. That said, if you get a chance to drink a bottle of Penfold's 'Grange', their flagship red, you're in for a real treat.

Recently I was at a wine tasting of a range of New Zealand wines, a country with a strong export drive and a growing wine industry. Their single largest grape variety is the Sauvignon Blanc, a grape that in the Old World never quite manages to create the complexity of the Chardonnay. In cooler climates the grape can have something of an odour of cat's urine, but in New Zealand the grape really shines and wines made here from this grape come as a bit of a surprise. I tasted four or five of Corban's varietals, all of which managed to create a complex wine, long on the palate, that were better than any European Sauvignon Blanc that I've tasted. Probably my current favourite wine from New Zealand is Cloudy Bay, but it's a very limited production and isn't easy to source.

South America is rapidly making gains in the Irish market, in particular wines from Chile and Argentina. Again their style tends to be different from the European norm and is closer to the Antipodean wines. Probably the best known Chilean wines are from Concha y Toro, who have wineries in both Chile and Argentina. These are very much in the middleprice range and represent good value for money. One of my favourite Argentinean wines recently on the market is Navarro Correas, which is currently a 1994 and a Reserva. Big and complex, it's well-balanced between fruit and acidity and is a good example of the kind of wine-making that Argentina specialises in. None of these would take the place of a great Claret in my heart, but for less exalted drinking they're a lot closer to what I can afford.