My alter-ego on this journal is as a staff photographer.

Long before I joined the Evening Press photographic department, as a junior photographer of six months employ on a weekly in Lincolnshire, I had been made all too aware of why it was a good idea to put a film in my camera. The editor of the newspaper I was working for never let me forget my slip-up.

I never lose my wine notes. Perhaps this is, in part, a lesson learned from forgetting to load film into my camera as a junior. These days I don't worry about loading film, a one gigabyte compact flash card serves the purpose much better.

Download the following reds which are new additions to the shelves and new entries into my book of wine notes. But don't expect them to have medicinal benefits for your memory.

No points for guessing from which country Camden Park 'No Bull' Shiraz/Petit Verdot 2004 comes. To be found on the Australia shelf at Thresher, it labels itself as a no-nonsense sort of wine.

There's plenty of glass used in the manufacture of the bottle to start with, although a real cork would have been a nice touch. But most of all, it's a very approachable but not overly jammy wine, just very drinkable. Blackberry leads the way on the flavour front but with good support from plums and pepper. You can catch it on offer at Thresher until the end of the month.

Californian producer Mondavi has just added three single varietal wines to the UK market under the guise of the Woodbridge range. Of the two reds in the range, I strongly favour the Robert Mondavi Woodbridge Shiraz 2003.

Closed with a screwcap, this is an easy-going Californian take on the shiraz grape, it is soft and approachable but rich, dense and spicy also. Notes of toasty oak, plums and blackberry have the capacity to linger.

If I had to name areas of wine production I could call favourites the Languedoc-Roussillon region of south-west France would be high on the list.

The Mont Tauch co-operative, which represents more than half of the Fitou appellation in the Languedoc, has released a new wine under its own name. Mont Tauch Fitou 2003 is a soft and spicy blend of carignan and grenache with a little shiraz. There is a nod to the New World in its fruit-forward style but the areas characteristics are not forsaken. It is full of aniseed laden blackberry fruit and represents good value at £6.

Camden Park 'No Bull' Shiraz/Petit Verdot 2004, £7 at Thresher (three-for-two until the end of September) 16/20

Robert Mondavi Woodbridge Shiraz 2003, £6.49 at Tesco, Somerfield and Sainsbury's 16/20

Mont Tauch Fitou 2003, £5.99 at Somerfield, Sainsbury's and Thresher 16/20

Updated: 16:20 Friday, September 02, 2005