Drinks to suit each budget, including supermarket greatest buys, chosen by Observer Meals Monthly’s wine expert
Taste the Difference Viognier IGP Pays d’Oc, France 2019 (£7, Sainsbury’s)
Laurent Miquel has mastered the art of making plushly textured yet recent dry whites from the extravagantly scented viognier grape at accessible costs. This model, with its fleshy white peach and apricot, is not any exception.
Co-op Actually Irresistible Marsanne IGP Pays d’Oc, France 2019 (£8, The Co-op)
Another proficient (and prolific) Midi winemaker (Jean-Claude Mas) and one other beautifully rounded dry white from a Rhône white grape (marsanne), offering ripples of ripe stone fruit, apple and pear and a drizzle of honey.
Best purchase
M&S Classics Touraine Sauvignon Blanc Loire, France 2019 (£8, Marks & Spencer)
For a fishy first course on any of the big Christmas days, look no additional than this Loire sauvignon blanc which has all of the basic elderflower grassiness and racing freshness of Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé at a fraction of the price.
Tesco Finest Western Australian Chardonnay Australia 2019 (£8, Tesco)
Howard Park, the producer behind one of Tesco’s most reliably glorious wines, Tingleup Riesling, has provide you with the goods once more right here in a full-flavoured yet finely balanced cut price of a roast bird-ready white.
Schloss Gobelsberg Loss Grüner Veltliner Kamptal, Austria 2019 (from £13.90, fieldandfawcett.co.uk; bottleapostle.com)
A wonderfully versatile Austrian dry white that combines citrussy liveliness, pep and freshness with spicy white peppery depths and ripe apple. Curs via the richness of a chicken and all of the trimmings, in addition to pairing with chilly cuts or smoked salmon.
Domaine de l’Ancienne Cure Monbazillac France 2017
To sip with the stilton, match a dessert, or sip luxuriantly by itself, it is a gorgeously wealthy however tangily balanced late-harvest candy wine from the Monbazillac appellation in Bergerac that mixes honey, toffee and orange marmalade.
Bodegas Albamar Albariño Rías Baixas, Spain 2019
Xurxo Alba is one of the most enjoyable producers working within the Atlantic-influenced cool of Galicia, and it is a gorgeously evocative model of the native albariño grape, tempering its ripe peachiness with blossom and bracing sea-salt-and-citrus freshness.
Domaine de la Taille aux Loups Clos de Mosny Montlouis Sec Loire, France 2018
From prime Loire winemaker Jacky Blot it is a usually scintillating instance of chenin blanc taken from a single winery, a shimmering mixture of Cox’s apple and refined toastiness with excellent focus, weight and balancing tang and nerve.
Red wines
Tesco Best Côtes du Rhône-Villages Signargues France 2019
Good worth for a usually ripe, warming and robust southern Rhône crimson mix of grenache and syrah with layers of ripe blackberry and fig pepped up with spice that may fortunately sit alongside the full-on roast and trimmings with out breaking the bank.
Cidade Branca Alentejo Red Portugal 2019
A wealthy, ripe, sun-filled crimson mix from southern Portugal based mostly on the nation’s nice crimson grape, touriga nacional, this provides a boldly succulent palate of ripe black cherry and berry with satisfyingly textured, grown-up, meat-friendly tannin.
Finest Purchase
Co-op Chiroubles Beaujolais, France 2019
With the best wines of Burgundy rising an increasing number of costly, the more and more glorious gamays of Beaujolais have stuffed a niche for inexpensive elegant reds with a lightness of touch, and this slinky, silky, summer-berry-filled magnificence is simply excellent worth.
Waitrose No.1 Cederberg Syrah, South Africa 2018
A usually expressive, vivid instance of syrah from the high-altitude vines (more than 1,000m above sea-level) of Cederberg, that is stuffed with darkish raspberry and cherry, seasoned with syrah’s signature peppery spice, for the Christmas bird.
Aldinger Estate Spätburgunder Württemberg, Germany 2018
German winemakers simply get higher and higher at pinot noir, and here’s a lightweight, lithe and joyously strawberry and raspberry-driven instance that positively dances on the tongue, its pulse of redcurrant on the end a cleaning match for the Christmas Day roast.
Vallisto Barbera Cafayate, Salta, Argentina 2018
Piemontese red grape barbera is right here given a turbo-charge of ripeness and brightness in a few of the world’s highest vineyards in north-eastern Argentina, resulting in a sophisticated wine of vivacious pure berry fruit, seasoned with sage and cherry acidity.
La Rioja Alta Viña Ardanza Seleccíon Especial Reserva Rioja 2010 (£27.99, or £24.99 as a part of a mixed case of six, majestic.co.uk)
Venerable Rioja establishment La Rioja Alta’s flagship Ardanza is at all times some of the reliably mellow and rewarding traditional riojas around; within the 2010 classic it’s particularly good, with deep darkish fruit and savoury oak, it’s wealthy, smart, suave.
La Fiorita Rosso di Montalcino, Tuscany, Italy 2018
With its alluring mixture of herb, wild flowers and completely captured crimson berries and cherries, and its caressingly silky construction, this stunning instance of Montalcino rosso is not less than nearly as good as many a supposedly superior Brunello from the identical stunning Tuscan hilltown.
Sparkling wines
Morrisons The Finest Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG NV (£10, Morrisons)
A prosecco of actual appeal, that brings all of the fashion’s uplifting qualities: it’s effervescent with fluffy icing sugar bubbles and blossomy floral-edged recent candy pear juiciness and a splash of lemon citrus, all with a surge of mild acidity.
Finest Purchase
Marks & Spencer Classics Crémant Burgundy, France NV (£10, Marks & Spencer)
Made using the identical conventional technique as champagne, and from a few of the similar grape varieties (pinot noir and chardonnay, plus a bit gamay), that is simply excellent worth, a fine-bubbled, creamy, bright-fruited fizz with an extended, racy, clean-cut end.
Tesco Best English Rosé Sparkling Brut Kent, England NV (£20, Tesco)
Made for Tesco by the reliably good Hush Heath Property in Kent, it is a basic pinot noir-led pink fizz that offers loads of class and high quality for the cash, all crimson apples, raspberries and that characteristically English glowing attribute of nervy, tongue-tingling brightness.
Ruinart Blanc de Blancs Second Skin Champagne, France NV (£69.99, Selfridges)
Ruinart’s pleasant 100% chardonnay cuvée is on excellent kind for the time being, with its sublimely elegant mixture of advantageous floral, citrus and burgeoning patisserie store flavours now offered in an unusually restrained, and eco-friendly, “second-skin” reward field.