THANK heavens it’s all over for another year. I’m not a Grinch, by the way, and I do actually enjoy some of the build-up to the season – it’s just that by the time I get to Christmas Eve I could punch carol singers.

The bit I really dislike, though, is New Year’s Eve. Am I the only person who hates the now traditional questions about plans for the future and wishing next year could be better than the last? Personally I’m just glad I’m there but the occasion is always tainted by the fact that my birthday is January 4, putting me one year closer to the end of the line.

By the time you read this, I will be 54 and my birthday present from Louise my shop partner and work wife was wrinkle cream and face scrub!

Thankfully for my sanity I snaffled away the last bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from the shop to partner New Year’s Day dinner but before we get there let me tell you about the evening two nights before.

I had Tweedledee and Tweedledum around for their annual wine improvement evening and it was clear that we need to squeeze more lessons in for my wine-challenged companions. Tweedledee has become a junkie for Barolo and before you say anything, I’m not against Barolo it just doesn’t have much of a place in the world of fine wines.

Barolo can be fun and full of flavour but for me it’s the wine equivalent of Stella Artois. It’s high in alcohol and low in finesse. Still, as it was the season, I humoured him and his gallant choice which he purchased in one of those three-for-a-tenner off-licences in Clitheroe. I found that if I partnered every taste with a bit of Haigh’s roast ham it was almost acceptable.

Tweedledum, on the other hand, is fixated on Burgundy and brought a rather pleasant Nuit St George which can be rather enjoyable on its own or with rosé wines but it loses its way when tasted alongside a street thug Barolo and my own superlative entry for the evening.

For my part, I thought it was about time I introduced my friends to a truly world-class Merlot and opened the first fine wine of the night: the incredible Grand Merlot from Irvine the Merlot Master of Australia. It’s a sumptuously rich wine with masses of rich plummy fruits and it feels like you’ve just given your tongue a massage with velvet gloves.

As it’s traditional for the host of these wine education evenings to add an extra taste for the occasion, we finished the evening with one of the finest Cabernet Sauvignons ever released from the USA: the stunning Stags Leap Artemis. Its rich blackcurrant flavours further distanced my two colleagues from their rather standard entries for the evening and I’m sure Tweedledum is secretly wishing he had invested more in the New World!

Anyway back to the future and I thought it would be rather interesting to look at what the trends may be in the world of wine for 2016.

Last year’s trend was Prosecco which took me and lots of others in the wine world by surprise in a really big way. That tends to happen once in a blue moon in the staid world of wine and I can’t really see a shocker coming around the corner for 2016 but I think I can see where some trends seem to be taking us.

In terms of wine, I think there’s going to be a resurgence for the Old World wines, particularly Bordeaux and Rioja, and that’s as much to do with world events as the winemakers themselves. All through the back end of last year we were hearing about natural disasters, terrorist atrocities, the possibility of interest hikes and more war and the sum total of all that is that a lot of people tend to retreat back to comfort blankets of old.

Even young people tend to search out wines that seem to hark back to a more peaceful time. We’ve seen that happen in the past, particularly after 9/11, but this time help is on hand from the vineyards themselves.

The Bordelais have made increased efforts over the last couple of years to produce more and more appealing sub-£20 wines rather than the overly tannic rubbish they used to pump out on the premise that it would age well. The Rioja winemakers meanwhile all seem to have had a celebrity presentation makeover and their products this last year have largely been stunning. As most of what I play with is at the Gran Reserva end of the market, it’s a long time since I’ve tasted a poor Rioja but with their new frocks on, the wines are definitely going to appeal to a much wider audience.

The other market I see developing is one I need to explore more myself in the coming months: liqueurs and flavoured spirits. Without any doubt at all one of the finest new flavoured spirits of the last 12 months has been Cumbria’s very own Sticky Toffee Vodka. It’s a product I can see making the break into the likes of Harrods, Fortnum’s and John Lewis in 2016 and good luck to them if it does.

Shortly after that came on the market, another local product jumped in to share the stage: Kendal Mint Cake Liqueur.

It sounds like it should be awful and smells initially like mouthwash but by heck it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Once you get past the initial aroma it’s like someone liquidised a box of After Eight mints and threw in some vodka for good measure. Delicious!