IT was apparently Blue Monday earlier this week - supposedly the most depressing day of the year at the start of the most depressing week of the year.

All the Christmas and New Year festivities are long gone, all our presents are gathering dust in the charity shop, the days are cold, dark and dank, and summer holidays are still a lifetime away.

Oh, and everyone is back into the gloom and doom of work with nothing to look forward to apart from an Easter egg in a few miserable months' time. There's not even a snowball fight in the offing to bring much-needed mirth.

What we all need to get us through, therefore, is cosiness and comfort food. And, more importantly, comfort wine. Yeah, forget "Dry January" - a ludicrous conception that only makes a dismal time of year even more wretched.

So, comfort wine.

We're talking a good Zinfandel with your spicy pepper pizza, a inexpensive Bardolino splashing on the table with an easy tomato pasta, a creamy Chardonnay from Burgundy.

Or how about a Beaujolais. An excellent example of is The Wine Society's Beaujolais-Villages - a fruity number, with lively sappy character, and a drink so refreshing that another glass is called for. And another.

Beaujolais is French "Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée" wine generally made of the Gamay grape - which is related to Pinor Noir but is generally easier to cultivate and produces a fruitier wine in larger abundance.

Indeed, the farmer-friendly grape historically brought relief to the village growers following the nightmare that was the Black Death - which brings some perspective when we're grumbling about Blue Monday.

The grapes are thin skin and low in tannins and the wine tends to be very light-bodied, with relatively high acidity.

Some cheap and nasty Beaujolais in more recent commercial times have deserved moans and groans - #firstworldproblems - but get a quality one and all is soon well with the world.

The Society's Beaujolais-Villages blend is such an example, with its £7.50 price tag already comforting.

Moreover, it goes with top-notch comfort food, such as fried chicken or bangers and mash swimming in gravy. There is enough about it to pair with charcuterie and fancy fowl, too, while it is also one of those reds - best served cool - that you can enjoy with fish.

Either way, a few glasses of this and all of a sudden things aren't so gloomy after all.

The week comes and goes, the weekends are fun and relaxing, the Premier League is in full swing, the rugby league season is nearly upon us, payday is coming, and soon enough it'll be summertime.

Happy days.