Bodega Volcanes Carménère, Rapel Valley, Chile 2014 (£10.99, or £7.99 as part of a mixed case of six, Majestic) Wine as comfort. It's an idea that is especially appealing at this daylight-starved time of the year, but all the more so when we seem to be living through a surreal prequel to The Hunger Games. For me, comfort wines, like comfort food, should be soft, warm and filling. Nothing too challenging, just lots of dark fruit and a cosseting texture – the kind of red wine you can drink alone or with my favourite consoling winter dish, shepherd's pie. Chile does this kind of generous style well, and this version of the country's signature red grape, carmenère, combines suave tannins, juicy blackcurrant, subtle leafiness and spice, even a touch of that other great edible source of solace, chocolate.
Kilikanoon Killerman's Run Shiraz, Clare Valley, Australia 2014 (£13, Marks & Spencer) Other candidates for smooth wines of substance can be found across the Andes in Argentina. Malbec is of course the country's calling card, and Taste the Difference Fairtrade Morador Malbec 2015 (£8, Sainsbury's) is lavishly black cherry-fruited, with a brightness of acidity that works very well if your comfort food choice is tomato-rich spaghetti bolognese. But the variety is at home in blends, too, not least in Viñalba's deep, dark Black Forest gateau combination of Malbec with Portuguese grape Touriga Nacional (£12.99, or £9.99, 2014 vintage, as part of a mixed six, Majestic). Then there's Australia, home of the world's most soothing shiraz: Kilikanoon's exuberant example fairly billows with perfumed black fruit and good cheer.
Domaine Vaquer Cuvée Bernard Red, Roussillon, France 2014 (£10.99, Wine Sensations) In France, it's red wines from the south that offer the vinous equivalent of a warm bath or a seat at the fireside, with a recipe of some or all of grenache, syrah, carignan and mourvèdre. Start in the east, in the southern Rhône Valley with a brambly mini-Châteauneuf-du-Pape such as Cellier des Dauphins Plan de Dieu 2015 (£8.98, Asda). Working west, the Languedoc's Minervois appellation brings liquorice and pepper to the deep blackberry juiciness in Château de Cesseras Cuvée Olric 2014 (£10.75, Oddbins). Then it's down to Catalan France, where Burgundian émigré Frédérique Vaquer's Cuvée Bernard combines the sun-filled, mouth-filling fruitiness that comes so easily in her adopted home with the soft, silky elegant style of the wines of her birthplace.