£14.95, The Wine Society I had a white lined up for this week, but it's been so chilly I’m feeling the need for some red wine comfort, although not necessarily something too big and strapping. In the hope that you too need a bit of red wrap-around and that you're also doing #tryjanuary rather than Dry January, I've chosen a medium-bodied German red made from the offbeat Trollinger grape in Fellbach, north-east of Stuttgart. It's pale, perfumed and spicy with rounded red-berry

I made the point in last week's Wine of the Week that Germany has never been short of red wines. More than one third of its vineyards are red grapes and it’s the third largest grower of Pinot Noir in the world. Yes, the world. Only France and the US have more Pinot and they both grow a significant amount of it for sparkling wines. New Zealand's Pinot Noir plantings are way behind Germany's. So Pinot Noir is well established in Germany, but what has changed is the style of red

£15, selected Marks & Spencer Hands up if you didn’t know Germany made red wine. Quite a show of hands, I bet. In fact, Germany has never held back on red – nearly one third of its vineyards are red grapes – but until quite recently the wines were aimed squarely at the domestic market's traditional taste for very lightweight reds. Now there’s a generation of winemakers making a riper, fuller, contemporary style that's somewhere between red Burgundy and New Zealand Pinot Noir.

This is the sort of piece I normally write at the close of the year, but I have more than enough material and deserving wines to mention already. Who knows how many more I may have by the end of the year? So, the next big thing in wine is? Well, goodness, don’t ask me. If I knew, I wouldn’t be sitting here telling you, I’d be making sure I was in on the action and the rewards. What I can say is that I seem to have had more frontier-breaking wines this year than ever. Admitted