From a brilliant South African sauvignon blanc to a beefy red burgundy – choose carefully and, for a little extra money, you can unearth a real classic

by Jane MacQuitty

WHITES

2007 Barrel Selection Roussanne, Vin de Pays des Côtes de Thongue, Domaine Sainte Rose, France, Waitrose, £8.99. Domaine Sainte Rose, owned by British couple Charles and Ruth Simpson, is a Languedoc estate already well known to Times readers for its sub-£6 bottles. These barrel-aged wines are worth paying extra for – this roussanne, a rhône variety, delivers all manner of exotic, burnt, buttery, peach and almost pepperminty spice.

2007 Mar d’Avall Garnatxa Blanca, Emporda, Jean-Marc Lafage, Spain,Bibendum (020-7449 4120), £9.37. Gallic wizard Jean-Marc Lafage makes wine on both sides of the Pyrenees now, and these new Els Pyreneus bottles stood out at Bibendum’s spring tasting as some of the best new-wave Spanish wines I have tasted in years. This delicious winter white delivers plenty of floral, spicy, appley, oak flavours that will work as well with food as without.

2007 Gewürztraminer, Vin d’Alsace, Jean-Luc and Bruno Meyer, France, Stone Vine & Sun (01962 712351), £9.95. Jean-Luc Meyer and his son Bruno’s tiny cellar and vineyards at Eguisheim turn out some utterly delicious, rose petal-perfumed and grapefruit-spiked gewürzes. With no hint of the over-extracted flavours that New World gewürztraminers (and even some French offerings) suffer from, this is a winner. Perfect with the festive season’s smoked salmon.

2006 Senteurs des Vignes, Albert Mann, Alsace, France, Waitrose Direct (0800 188881), £9.99. A polished, fruit and flower garden wine made from a hotchpotch of grapes. It is principally riesling, pinot blanc and pinot auxerrois, but with a dollop of muscat and gewürztraminer too, and makes a fine festive white, as its heady, perfumed, fruit cocktail-charged flavours cope with the big-food assault course in a way that skinny, bone-dry whites just don’t.

2007 Mâcon-Fuissé, Les Vieilles Vignes, Vincent Girardin, France,Booths (0800 1970066), £9.99. Vincent Girardin’s new-look Mâconnais wines are every bit as beguiling as his Côte d’Or range. What you can bank on from this smartly labelled, sensibly priced newcomer (’07 is the first vintage) is oodles of lively, lemon and lime-spiked verdant fruit – with a lot more finesse and flavour than you would expect from common-or-garden Mâconnais. Bravo!

2007 Iona Sauvignon Blanc, Elgin, South Africa, Waitrose, £9.99. Brilliant South African bottle from a cooler plateau east of Cape Town, and one of the best, if not the best sub-£10 Cape sauvignon blanc out there. It blasted on to my tasting table ages ago, and has been awaiting a high-street listing ever since. Unsurprisingly, Waitrose’s buyers have succumbed to Iona’s intense, herby, zesty, gooseberry and green bean-charged charms, and at this price it’s a steal.

2006 Domaine Pierre de Préhy Chablis, Jean-Marc Brocard, France, Marks & Spencer, £10.99. Cheap, enamel-stripping chablis is on offer everywhere and rarely delivers the lemony, minerally, leafy, classic northern white burgundy flavours you would expect. Far better to have one bottle of the real Kimmeridgian-soil thing, viz this 2006, a first-class vintage, from Jean-Marc Brocard. The ideal bone-dry white to serve with festive fish and seafood dishes.

2007 Tenuta Luisa Friulano, Isonzo del Friuli, Italy, Waitrose, £10.99. Every festive line-up needs a bold, food-friendly Italian white as a welcome change for jaded festive palates after one too many hefty French wines. And at 14 per cent alcohol, this friulano from northeastern Italy is no shrinking violet. A chunky, perfumed white, it is blessed with lots of smoky, nutty, apricot and lemon-scented fruit, and is best served with food. A delight.

2006 Extra Ordinary White, Graves, Bordeaux, France, Berry Bros & Rudd (01256 340182), £11.50. Berry’s Own Selection, its posh-sounding own-label wines, get better each vintage, and this mouthwatering dry white sauvignon blanc and sémillon-based bordeaux is a Christmas cracker. A gorgeous, floral, sandalwood-spiced white that makes both the perfect festive apéritif and a handy buffet bottle to serve with cold turkey.

STAR WHITE 2005 Saint-Aubin, Le Ban, Henri Prudhon & Fils, France, The Wine Society (01438 740222), £11.95. The Prudhon family has lived and worked for centuries in Saint-Aubin, a still undervalued Côte d’Or village whose top wines, such as this one, deliver terrific value for money. Le Ban, a small, low-yielding vineyard, is home to this sublime white burgundy whose seductive, ripe, hazelnutty fruit makes it an outstanding festive feast bottle.

REDS

2006 Mar d’Amunt, Cariñena, Emporda, Jean-Marc Lafage, Spain,Bibendum, £8.87. A blend of 100-year-old cariñena and 20 per cent garnatxa grapes, though it doesn’t say so on the label, this is the red partner to Jean-Marc Lafage’s Mar d’Avall white. With so much smoky, tarry, rose-scented, earthy, liquorice-like fruit, this powerful 14 per cent Pyrenees red is the bottle to serve with strong game dishes such as venison and jugged hare.

2006 Churchill Estates, Douro, Churchill Graham, Portugal, Majestic, £8.99, Tanners (01743 234455), £9.10, Christopher Piper (01404 814139), £9.65. The mountainous Douro valley had a cooler, less arid climate in 2006 than either of the two preceding vintages, so its ’06 reds are softer and more approachable. Johnny Graham’s fine, spicy, herby wine, with lots of savage yet velvety red fruits on the finish, makes a wonderful Christmas Day bottle.

2006 Morellino di Scansano 414 Podere, Maremma Toscana, Simone Castelli, Italy, The Wine Society, £9.95, Private Cellar (01353 721999), £10.31. The only good thing Mussolini did was to drain the Tuscan Maremma so vines could be grown there. The morellino grape is a sangiovese clone and here is topped up with a dash each of ciliegiolo, alicante and colorino, making a rich, ripe red with morello cherry and dried cranberry-styled fruit to the fore.

2007 Morgon Côte du Py, Vieilles Vignes, Christophe Cordier, France,Majestic, £10.99 or buy two for £9.99 each. It may seem the wrong season for beaujolais, but there comes a time in every festive marathon when less is more. Cordier has wrung every bit of fruit and flavour from this cru by selecting hard-pruned vines and rounding it off with almost a year’s ageing, producing a strawberry and other red fruits-stashed wine with real Christmas appeal.

2005 Château du Moulin Noir, Lussac-St-Emilion, Bordeaux, France, Wine Rack, down to £9.99 until January 7. An exotic, spicy, cedary, sandalwood-scented claret with the sort of rich finish that would make it a natural with all but the most strongly flavoured game dishes. Made from merlot with a one-fifth dollop of cabernet franc and one-tenth dash of cabernet sauvignon, this is another fine example of just how truly great the 2005 vintage was.

2006 Seven Canoes, Syrah-Viognier, Heretaunga Vineyards, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, Wine Rack, buy three for £9.99 each. Seven Canoes’ best wine on sale here is this tremendous blend – almost the star red. It has taken a leaf out of the northern Rhône Côte-Rôtie producers’ manual by using the white grape viognier to lighten and perfume the hefty red syrah. The result is a gorgeous, ripe, juicy yet full-bodied, smoky, brambley, violet-scented red.

2005 Teira Sonoma County Zinfandel, California, Berry Bros & Rudd, £10.95. Not everyone enjoys the cold potato spice of the syrah grape, so for some, California’s zinfandel may be a better choice with the boldest festive game meats. If so, this restrained 13.5 per cent alcohol Teira zin is the one to serve. Blessed with delicious, velvety, blackberry fruit, this is tailor-made for big festive food and would happily even accompany turkey and all the trimmings.

2002 Bourgogne Pinot Noir, Domaine Jean Grivot, Burgundy, France, The Wine Society, £11.50. 2002 was one of the most successful recent red burgundy vintages – particularly so for lesser vineyards, with wines like this one, which had a chance for once to ripen fully in this cool northern region. Jean Grivot’s low-yielding old vines are renowned for their rich, concentrated wines, and this delicious, smoky, beefy red burgundy is a brilliant example.

2006 Burnt Spur Martinborough Pinot Noir, New Zealand, Howard Ripley (020-8877 3065), £11.50. Martinborough is one of the prime Kiwi spots for the pinot noir grape; not as starry or silky as those of Central Otago but able to give Burgundy a run for its money with some distinctively spiced offerings of its own. So scoop up this bold, young, beetrooty pinot noir, with lots of seductive, young, perfumed, crunchy red fruit on the finish, and rejoice.

2005 Château Magnol, Cru Bourgeois, Haut-Médoc, Bordeaux, France,Co-op, £11.99. Barton & Guestier was one of the great Bordeaux négociants, alas no longer family-run, but still occasionally yielding a tasty claret. Enjoy this one’s outstanding, fat, beefy, herbaceous-perfumed palate, a succulent 50-50 cabernet sauvignon and merlot blend. It hails from a château only producing 7,000 cases – and from the great 2005 vintage.

2001 Château Calon, Montagne-St Emilion, J.N. Boidron, Bordeaux, France,Majestic, £11.99. Nothing to do with great left-bank St Estèphe third-growth Château Calon-Ségur, Calon is a 36-hectare right-bank property. Two thirds of this is aged in oak, the remainder kept in the tank and the two blended, in order to make it fresher and fruitier. I loved its rich, Christmassy style, all mature, bloody, beefy spice, with lots of cedar and green pepper on the finish.

STAR RED 2005 Chorey-les-Beaune, Les Beaumonts, Domaine Martin-Dufour, Burgundy, France, Wine Rack, buy three for £10.66 each. Chorey-les-Beaune is another little-known Burgundy village with wines that over-deliver. 2005 was almost as great a red year in Burgundy as Bordeaux, and this, from a walled vineyard, delivers so much gorgeous, smouldering, strawberry and faintly leather-scented fruit, it makes a wonderful festive food red.

FORTIFIED

2003 Graham’s Late Bottled Vintage Port, Portugal, Tesco, £11.61, Morrisons, £11.62, Sainsbury’s, £11.99. LBV port from a good, hot vintage such as 2003 does have a place on the festive table, and this is the best of the bunch. Not in the same league as a true vintage port, this nonetheless delivers some surprisingly toothsome, spicy, plummy, cabbage rose-scented fruit with the sort of firm, inky finish that will give it wide appeal at the end of the festive feast.

Rivesaltes Ambré, Solera Aged, Hors d’Age, Vin Doux Naturel, Jean-Marc Lafage, France, Bibendum, down to £11.99 (50cl) until December 19. The ideal mince pie et al sticky to give and receive this Christmas is J-M Lafage’s astonishing vdn, made from grenache and macabeu grapes. Crammed full of ripe, raisiny, dried apricot and faintly chocolate and vanilla-spiked fruit, be certain to snap this one up now before it goes back up in price.

SWEET

2006 Meulenhof Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese, Mosel, Germany, Tanners, £11.90. Luscious mosels work well during those dull festive moments when it is still too early for apéritifs but a comforting glass of something not too alcoholic – this is just 9.5 per cent alcohol – is required. Try this glorious sticky, oozing waxy, honeyed apricot and pineapple notes, with clementines or crystallised fruit to make you feel that all’s right in the world.