Fresh, floral and frisky – these are bottles that are more about mood pairing than food pairing

Wine and food matching is one thing but it’s every bit as much fun to match wine with mood. Just as there are some wines that are best with curry, cheese or seafood, there are bottles whose characteristics – the flavours they call to mind, or simply something about the way they’re put together – seem to fit a specific moment or even a season.

At this time of year, for example, when whatever pared-back beauty winter might have possessed has long since lost its austere allure, I start looking for wines that can both echo the scents and keep step with the rising spirits of spring. I find myself craving what I think of as the paradigmatic springtime wine: whether it’s the unashamedly herbaceous and gooseberry-exuberant classic New Zealand style, or the river-cool, grassy mode perfected in Sancerre in France’s Loire Valley, good-quality sauvignon blanc always feels full of new life.