Five hot spots

South Africa
I've just got back from South Africa and, boy, have things moved along at a cracking pace. South Africa is right up there at the forefront of New World winemaking, which is no mean feat, considering how far it's come in recent years.

It wasn't that long ago, remember, when Nelson Mandela walked to freedom - 1990, in case you'd forgotten - when over-cropped, virused vineyards were awash with inferior grape varieties and there was not much incentive to change, such were the shackles of the co-operatives. Thankfully, those days have long gone, and the industry has seen some monumental changes.

There are dozens of new producers - nearly 50 new estates a year, if you go by John Platter's South African Wine Guide - with many of them doing their thing in areas not previously considered good wine-producing spots: areas such as Elgin, Darling, Durbanville and Elim. And established regions such as Paarl, Stellenbosch and Constantia have benefited hugely from an injection of fresh ideas.

Grape varieties most enthusiastically planted in 2002 were once again Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, followed by Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot, while Chenin Blanc, paradoxically, was both the fifth most-planted variety and the most uprooted, though it still occupies the largest percentage of plantings.

Consequently, exports have grown from 51 million litres in 1994 to 235 million litres in 2003. Wines of South Africa chairman Paul Cluver is unsurprisingly ebullient: "We have uprooted and replanted vineyards; matched cultivar to terroir; we have discovered exciting new vineyard sites and developed improved vineyard management techniques to maximise regional expression; and we have developed our own approach to winemaking, producing wines that are inimitably, proudly South African."

Today, most of the excitement surrounds small to medium-sized wineries making great wine which, thanks to a weakened rand, arrives in the UK offering excellent value for money.

There's a raft of fine producers emerging, from the outspoken Andr‚ van Rensburg over at Vergelegen, with his succession of award-winning wines, to the pioneering Bruwer Raats, who stuck to his guns and now turns out world-class Chenin Blancs (available at an Oddbins near you) and sexy Cabernet Franc.

Languedoc-Roussillon, France I'm often asking (mostly French) sommeliers which wine region or country excites them most, and Languedoc-Roussillon crops up time and again. Over the past 10 years it has created more of a stir than any other wine region in France. Once known for producing bulk-quantity plonk, it now turns out some seriously good wine made by highly skilled winemakers.

The example was set in the 1970s and 1980s with pioneering estates such as Mas de Daumas Gassac, which have inspired a new legion of talented winemakers to rediscover the area's potential for quality wine. The two former provinces now vie with each other for supremacy, and the rate of change has been dramatic.

And there is terroir galore - from ChÆ'teauneuf-du-Pape-style pebbles to belts of schist, with almost pure chalk in the Minervois hills, making it ideal winemaking country.

Why wasn't this realised long before? Because growers were paid by quantity of grapes, not quality, and grape varieties were chosen for their high yields, not their flavour. So while bulk producers now struggle to make ends meet, the young guns are making a name for themselves with quality wines that you can buy for a fraction of the price of Bordeaux.

And there's been plenty of outside interest, with big-name estates from France's top regions buying in to the region, and even the odd Californian and Aussie producer making their mark here.

If you want to know more about it, pick up a copy of Paul Strang's Languedoc-Roussillon (published by Mitchell Beazley, £25), which charts the region's historical evolution and its methods of production, profiling the key producers, emerging and established.

Central Otago, New Zealand Not since the Gold Rush of the 1860s has Central Otago seen so much interest. New Zealand's, and the world's, most southerly wine region is now turning heads the world over as restaurant wine buyers and collectors battle over tiny allocations. Ignoring the sniggers from more established wine regions further north, pioneers planted vines here - lots of them - and made wine, rather good wine; certainly of a high enough quality to wipe the smirks off the doubters' faces.

Now they all want a slice. The Americans (Archery Summit) have moved in, and even the odd film star (Sam Neill, with Two Paddocks) has made a base here. But just to put things into perspective, Central Otago has only 650ha of grapes planted, which compares with 5,449ha under vine in Marlborough further north, and 20,000ha in Burgundy. And most of the vines are so young they've barely had their first harvest. But what a harvest. You just need to taste a bottle of Pinot Noir from young vines made by, say, Felton Road, and you'll understand why the wine world is getting so excited.

For sure, there's still a lot of experimenting going on: which varieties grow best where, and that sort of stuff. Site selection is paramount, to both maximise the sun's rays and minimise frost risk. There are four small wine sub-regions in Central Otago: the Gibbston Valley and Lake Hayes area near Queenstown; the Cromwell Basin, which includes Bannockburn, Lowburn, Northburn, the Pisa Flats and Bendigo; Alexandra and Clyde; and, finally, Wanaka in the north.

They'll tell you that their climate is rather like Burgundy's C"te d'Or, but it has a tad more variation. There can be a 15¡C difference in temperature between Gibbston Valley and Bendigo, 50km away in the warmest of the sub-regions.

Pinot Noir rules in Central Otago, with nearly 70% of plantings, though, sadly, the wines are in small supply and aren't exactly cheap. Land prices are high and labour is scarce, and to make really good Pinot Noir here, you need to work at it. Riesling is the region's next great hope and it produces confident dry and off-dry wines with lime and honeysuckle fruit, varietal character intact. Pinot Gris, too, is fast making a name for itself.

Italy It seems everybody is excited about Italian wine right now. Every new wine list I see has more than its fair share from Italy. What a turnaround. The country has gone from one of the world's persistent underperformers to one of the most thrilling. The wines now rival the top growths in Bordeaux, and sales in Europe and the USA are now stronger than ever.

How? Why? Put simply, Italy has a greater diversity than any other wine country, from the vine-clad hills in Piedmont to the vine-covered volcanic slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily.

Take Barbera, Piedmont's most-planted grape variety. Twelve years ago the Gambero Rosso Wine Guide listed a total of 31 wines from Barbera d'Asti and Barbera del Monferrato DOCs, with poor scores at that. The latest edition has 233 wines from the same DOCs with decent, if not impressive, scores.

Today, the new generation of super-Barberas command the kind of prices normally reserved for Nebbiolo in the neighbouring Langhe. Barbera used to coat your teeth and shrink your gums; now you get fruit, body and a bit of class.

It's not the easiest of grapes to work with, either. Its acidity was always a problem. But use ripe fruit, cut back on the sulphites, and the problem is solved. Bung it in French oak and you've then got something to talk about.

And what about the Marches? Verdicchio has graced supermarket trolleys for aeons, but it wasn't until the last decade that it actually started to get interesting. More and more producers here and elsewhere have been escaping the DOC shackles by using non-traditional red varieties - such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and even Syrah - in their blends to great effect.

Southern Italy, too, is fighting back against the dominance of the north, with a wealth of delicious reds made from native and international varieties. These wineries, both new and revamped, have taken their inspiration from the New World, making massive improvements in viticulture and winemaking to produce fresh new wines with big fruit flavours.

These changes are particularly apparent in Puglia and Sicily, where northern wine companies have taken a stake, though it's the new generation of local wine families that have made some of the most important innovations, investing in new planting and equipment and hiring top wine consultants.

Western Australia
Situated some 200 miles south of Perth, the Margaret River wine region of Western Australia is remote with a capital R - yet it's one of the most talked-about. This rugged land of granite and limestone, buffeted by the ocean and jumped on by a million kangaroos, only became a wine destination back in the 1960s, after a group of Cabernet-swilling doctors laid the foundations for some of the state's most prestigious wineries, among them Cullen and Cape Mentelle .

These days Margaret River is broken up into sub-regions, such is the newly discovered complexity of its terroir - namely Yallingup, Carbunup, Wilyabrup, Treeton, Wallcliffe and Karridale. Chardonnay has emerged as one of the region's great wine styles, and it doesn't do too badly with the Holy Grail of winemaking, Pinot Noir. Cabernet Sauvignon also does particularly well here (Wilyabrup is often described as the Pauillac of Margaret River). In fact, Margaret River can do many things well. It produces less than 3% of all Aussie wine but more than 20% of the country's premium wines.

Margaret River may be the best-known of Western Australia's winemaking regions, but it's just one of a growing number of emerging regions in this vast state. Size, exactly? We're talking 2,525,500sq km and 12,500km of coastline, with topography ranging from unforgiving desert to lush woodland.

The Australian Geographic Indications Committee is still finalising some of these new wine regions - such as Pemberton and Manjimup - while Geographe, Great Southern and its sub-regions of Albany, Frankland River, Denmark, Porongurup and Mount Barker are already classified. And the wineries are mostly small, boutique jobs, run by quirky individuals.

Six years ago there wasn't a vine to be seen in the Frankland River region, where Ferngrove Vineyards has set up shop. Here, Riesling is grown alongside Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon alongside Pinot Noir, and the ensuing wines are mostly interesting, individual expressions of those varieties, and usually completely different to the styles found elsewhere in Oz.