There may only be half a dozen houses where I live but it is a busy place. This week alone has seen the arrival of a new family next door, the sending of the home-reared ‘hamlet pigs’ to slaughter and the exciting discovery of the (hideously poisonous) but fantastically striking bright orange, white-spotted fly agaric mushrooms that have turned our pathways into something out of Alice in Wonderland.

As you can tell, I am more than a little besotted with our new home and as I have been more than a bit mean about bashing the locals’ parsnip wine efforts, I have promised to redress the balance.

Halloween is nearly upon us and with it come pumpkin and squash in all sorts of grizzly shapes and sizes.

With the new arrivals, we have two Americans within a few hundred yards of my front door and they are not just decorating with them; they are feasting on them too.

They wanted three wines to drink with a squash soup, a risotto and a pumpkin pie respectively and this is what I thought.

Wine and soup can be a bit hit and miss but I think that white wines often fare better than reds and I thought a voluptuous Viognier could be just the ticket for a butternut squash soup.

My pick is the creamy, spicy, white orchard-fruit flavoured Yalumba Viognier 2009 (£10.44 www.waitrosewine.com) The risotto has a sweeter taste as the squash is lightly roasted, giving it a caramelised flavour.

I want the wine to temper that sweetness and add some refreshing acidity. So, it is another white and I’m turning to Chenin Blanc for some answers.

I like the nervy acidity that comes with Chenin and the fact that many examples have delicious honeyed notes that work nicely with this sort of dish. I can think of nothing better than the bright, alert Te Arai Chenin Blanc 2008 (£11.75 www.vintageroots.co.uk) that is a fabulous mouthful of apple, quince, pear and honey.

Pumpkin pie calls out for a blinder of a sweet wine and after a lot of thought — and a bit of judicious sampling — the consensus was that nothing came closer than the sumptuous nut, fig and spice-driven sweet Matusalem 30 Year Old Oloroso Sherry (£18.50 www.oxfordwine.co.uk).

The pigs — beautifully cared for by two ladies on the lane — yielded what they described as ‘a frightening number of sausages’! It seems we all know what we will be getting for supper when we go round anytime soon.

On the wine front my instructions were clear — it had to be red, cheap and something that everyone was going to like. No pressure then.

I ultimately opted for a wine that is on offer at Marks & Spencer, the Plan de Dieu Côtes du Rhône Villages 2009 (£67.32 for a case of 12 www.marksandspencer.com, normally £80.89). It is a success because it is a generous, softly-fruited, round red with just a little splash of spice. Just the sort of red we will all be happy drinking chomping through our very locally-sourced bangers and mash.