This is how the rot sets in

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Never, ever, invite me to become a member of your wine group.

The last one I belonged to - when I lived in Christchurch - comprised of just the nicest possible group of people.

When we joined there were about five or six happily married couples and the odd lone ranger.

Over the course of the ensuing five years or so - as we drank our way around Australia, through France, along the rack to Spain, with the occasional foray among the Super-Tuscans - the group disintegrated at an alarming rate.

Well, it wasn't so much the group as the various marriages.

There one week, gone the next.

This was not due to regular forays into bacchanalian excess, as far as I could see, but rather the natural attrition of modern life (apparently somewhere between about 40% and 60% of contemporary marriages end in divorce - with or without the assistance of the vine).

I seem to recall we called ourselves the Noble Rot collective or something. (And yes, you, you there at the back of the class, you can put your hand down now . . . you are quite right, named after the parasitic fungus Botrytis cinerea which attacks ripe grapes and causes an increase in their sugar content, making them especially suitable for certain kinds of "botrytised" dessert wines - sometimes colloquially known as "stickies".) The point is, we evidently put a hex on the group.

Not long after we joined the rot began to set in - and there wasn't anything particularly noble about it.

But I digress.

I was going to say that wine groups are an excellent idea.

In fact I will say it: Wine groups are an excellent idea.

By gathering together a group of like-minded people - one or two of whom usually have a prodigious well of wine knowledge, and another couple of whom will be able to sniff out a hint of "sweaty saddles" at 100 paces, and pooling your financial resources, you can get to sample all sorts of novel and expensive labels that you wouldn't contemplate as an individual buyer.

Under the educational guise of the enterprise, you can justify getting quietly simmered on a night of the week when you would normally be tucked up in front to the tele with your cocoa watching Coronation Street - and contrary to received wisdom, it is not compulsory to spit half the stuff out.

Once you are established, you can also invite guests, sometimes winemakers or wine retailers, only too happy to share both their wisdom and their wares with such an enlightened bunch of enthusiasts.

I am reminded of this because recently, having failed to disclose my dodgy wine-group past, I was invited, as a non-performing guest, to an evening held by such such a group.

And a remarkably erudite mob it was, too, hosted on this occasion by my formidably knowledgable colleague, Charmian Smith.

She belongs to a group called the Wine Federation of Otago - since they have been going for 25-30 years, they have evidently earned such a grand appellation.

In their ranks they boast such local wine illuminati as Mark Henderson of Munslows in George St, and Sam Kerr of Rhubarb in Roslyn - fine people in whose company to increase your appreciation of fermented grape juice. (Incidentally, I believe, one or other, or perhaps both, run wine classes or tasting groups at various levels through their respective establishments.) Spanish wines were on the menu, but not just any old Spanish wines.

My knowledge of the genre mostly began and ended with the big reds of the Rioja region, (oh, yes and a Spanish bubbly - Freixenet that we poured down guests' throats at our mid-80s London wedding after-party).

What we were looking at here - sorry, drinking - were some very fine wines from the Ribera del Duero, one of the country's fastest developing wine regions.

Spain, somewhat unfairly, has a reputation for producing some cheap and nasty plonk.

But it also lends its name to some of the more expensive: in fact on the evening in question I probably sampled wines the value of which would eat up my entire booze budget for several years.

Located north of Madrid, Ribera del Duero, is a fast developing region.

Its wines are made predominantly from the region's own strain of the Tempranillo grape known as Tinta del Pais, with a few bordeaux varieties occasionally blended in.

In the "affordable" bracket ($27-$33) - rather than the lotto-ticket lot ($80-$445) - I most fancied the Pesquera Ribera del Duero Crianza 2004: 14% alcohol, 100% Tempranillo, a very dark purply-ruby colour and full-bodied, ripe fruit and softish tannins.

Coming a close second was the Condado de Haza Rivero del Duero Crianza 2004, a slightly more reserved wine, but similarly dark in hue, full of rich fruit, with some oaky dimensions and firm but not obtrusive tannins.

These and other wines of the evening were later accompanied by a fine selection of tapas provided by the hostess - which brought out, as food often does, other dimensions in the selected wines.

With all the razzmatazz and constant announcements of our own prize-winning wines, it is possible to forget that other countries make the stuff, too - and in some cases have been doing so for centuries.

Spain is among them and working your way along that particular rack is certainly worthwhile next time you are in a decent bottle shop.