If you blinked last April, you missed summer. If you blinked on April 26 this year, you may just have done the same. With a couple of months still to go till St.Swithin’s Day (15 July) comes round, there’s ample opportunity for the rain gods to deliver yet another rebuke to the idea that global warming means consistently hotter and drier English summers. Yet, the half-glass-full optimist in me is going to have to assume that this year’s average to dreadful April, except for ducks and umbrella salesmen, that is, means business as usual for the English summer. Not exactly bbq heaven in other words, but in the middle of a Lords Test between the two most rain-soaked cricketing nations on earth, time at least to embrace draughty picnics, colourful rainbows and summery swallows.

Is lower alcohol the answer? In response to demand for lighter styles, retailers are starting to come up with wines that use early harvesting to lower the alcohol without going so far as the ghastly so-called low alcohol ‘wines’ like Eisberg that remove all the alcohol altogether. The wine merchant Bibendum has come up with a white, red and rosé French vins de pays at 10.5 per cent called Altege, which I find bland, lean and, at £7.49, expensive. Marks and Spencer have also developed three 50 cl. Italian wines at 9.5 per cent, a spritzy 2007 white Verduzzo, a light, redcurranty Raboso Rosé and a grassy Venetian cabernet sauvignon, all at £3.49. I’m all in favour of the idea of catering for the demand for wines that are lighter in alcohol, but I don’t really see how marketing constructs like these serve the required purpose.

I’d rather go for a wine whose natural tendency is towards bearable lightness of being thanks to the climatic conditions in which it manages to achieve ripeness, or near ripeness, without having to resort to unnaturally early picking or the removal of alcohol through technological wizardry. Among them are the refreshingly petillant ‘green’ wines of vinho verde wines of northern Portugal such as the 2007 Quinta de Azevedo, £5.99, or buy two = £4.99, Majestic, whose zippy green apple bite and lemon sherbety tang at 11 per cent alcohol is achieved through the loureiro grape. Arguably the best grape variety here is alvarinho, which is the same grape across the Spanish border as Galicia’s appetizing, seafood-friendly albariño.

Not quite as light as it seems with alcohol levels hovering at around 12.5 per cent, it’s nevertheless one of summer’s most piercingly vivid and refreshing dry whites especially with the crisp 2007s now coming on stream. Good examples include the mouthwateringly grapefruity 2007 Lagar de Cervera Albariño, summer offer price £9.95, down from £12.45, Jeroboams, the intense fresh apple and pear-juicy 2007 Pazo de Señorans Albariño, £12.50, Philglas & Swiggot (020 7924 4494), and the distinctively spicy, intensely refreshingly crisp 2007 Terras Gauda o Rosal Albariño, around £12.25, Les Caves de Pyrène (01483 554750), Philglas & Swiggot, Eurovines, Isle of Wight (01983 811743). Continuing north into Basque country brings you to another Spanish delicacy the tongue-twisting, tongue-tingling hondarrabi zuri grape, which, with its cousin, the hondarrabi beltza, makes an intriguingly fresh, thirstquenchingly dry, lighter alcohol style in the 10.5 per cent 2007 Txomin Etxaniz Gataria, £12.99 - £15-99, D.Byrne, Clitheroe (01200 423152), Haslemere Cellars (020 8880 9200), Handford (020 7589 6113), Harvey Nichols.

With the riesling grape, Germany is capable of lightness that most New World countries can only aspire to. With 12 per cent alcohol, the 2007 Mineralstein Riesling, £6.49, Masks & Spencer, displays an aromatic sweet pea fragrance and refreshingly juicy floral fruit to make the perfect summer glugger. Even Australia where dry rieslings tend to weigh more heavily, you can find wines like the Lowe family’s 2007 Tinja Mudgee Riesling, £10.95, Vin du Van, Kent (01233 758727), whose youthful, mouthwatering, floral, lemon and lime like citrusy flavours and bone dry acidity at 11 per cent quench the thirst spectacularly. At just one per cent higher, also from Australia, the 2007 St.Hallett Poachers Blend Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, £6.99, makes for another lemon-citrusy refresher. No rosé? I hear you say. Not to worry, the glass-half-empty pessimist in me is keeping that particular powder dry for balmier summer days.

Something For the Weekend 17 May 2008

Under a Fiver

2007 Casillero del Diablo Chardonnay, £4.49, down from £5.99, until 20th May, Tesco,

One of the best value Chilean brands around, this popular chardonnay is well-crafted with fresh pineappley flavours and a touch of vanilla to add interest to a dry white that at this price makes a great everyday quaffer.

Under a Tenner.

2007 La Esperanza Estate Torrontés, £5.99, Marks & Spencer

Bodegas Felix Lavaque in high altitude Cafayate in Argentina’s northerly province of Salta is the source of this exotically fragrant torrontés, a grape that, like a muscat / gewürztraminer cross, delivers deliciously fresh, grapey-scented dry white flavours.

Splash Out

Louis Roederer Quartet NV, California, £19.99, Majestic, buy 2 bottles = £13.33, until 9 June.

This stylish sparkling wine made from Louis Roederer’s cool, high Anderson Valley outpost close to the Pacific Coast in Mendocino just gets better and better, producing here a seductive apples and cream, elegantly cool climate fizz.