£17.99–£19.95, Fine Wines Direct, Vinvm, Amazon I hardly need say that I wouldn't have chosen this if drinking it was like purgatory, but why would anyone (hipsters aside) give the name to their wine? Simple: conditions on the remote L'Aranyó estate from which it comes are so extreme – high, hot, arid – that Benedictine monks were sent there to work the land as penance and the farmhouse built by the Abbey of Montserrat in 1770 became known as the 'farmhouse of the exiled'. Wh

£8.49, Waitrose Clear a space in your fridge for another chillable red this week – unoaked old-vine Grenache at its most engaging and accessible, and accessibly priced too. Give it a light chill to emphasise its winning strawberry perfume, succulent summer-pudding fruit and the sapid white pepper note that adds a savoury lick. It comes from Thistledown Wine Company in South Australia, a small-batch producer founded and run by two Masters of Wine, Giles Cooke and Fergal Tynan,

£8.95, The Wine Society This is one of my house wines, one I turn to when I want the vinous equivalent of a comforting, warm hug. With more Syrah than Grenache in the blend, it's full and generous with a twist of fresh white pepper to season the plush raspberry fruit and deeper tapenade and game notes. 2016 was an exceptional vintage in the southern Rhône, but even in less favourable vintages such as 2013 Joséphine and Frédéric Arnaud make a success of their straight Côtes du

£8.49, Majestic Maybe it's auto suggestion, but there's a lovely off-the-beaten-track mountain wildness (salvaje means wild) to this old-vine Garnacha (aka Grenache), one of six under the the creative Vintae's Proyecto Garnachas banner that showcase the grape variety from old vineyards in different areas of the Ebro Valley in northeast Spain. The Salvaje vineyards lie on rocky soils at 820m asl on the north face of the Moncayo massif, where Navarra and Aragón meet and the Atl

£15.95, Yapp Brothers I wasn't planning to do another Provence red as Wine of the Week so soon, but I can't resist this and it's altogether different. Despite not being all that far geographically from Château Vignelaure – around 60km to the northwest – it's a different region. This is Luberon, where Provence meets the southern Rhône and the grape varieties reflect the southern Rhône. Château la Canorgue's red, a blend of Syrah, Grenache and old-vine Carignan, is dark, powerf

£12–£14.99, Tesco, The Wine Society, Great Western Wine, ND John, Winepig Unashamedly full-throated Aussie Shiraz from a family-owned and run winery that never seems to put a foot wrong. D'Arenberg produces a whole range of wines – white, red, traditional, innovative – and offers great value too. Hats off to the inimitable fourth-generation boss and winemaker Chester Osborn. The Footbolt is made artisan-style in open-top vats with foot-treading, basket-pressing and a mix of o

£14.99–£16.95, Averys of Bristol , Black Dog Wines (UK) I’m often surprised by the wines I find I haven’t featured here before. This estate-bottled red Séguret is a case in point. I blame Domaine de Mourchon’s Loubié Rosé, the release of which is always one of the early delights of the new rosé season. Judging by the number of the times I have recommended various vintages (here and here for example), the rosé seems to deflect me from the very good Mourchon reds. Not this time

£13.50–£16.99, The Wine Society, Flagship Wines, Fareham Wine Cellar, The Oxford Wine Company Domaine Jones is no stranger to my wine blogposts, so I'll concentrate on the wine, rather than tell Katie Jones's story again (which you can read here and here), but I will just say that she is an inspired, sensitive and meticulous winemaker specialising in wines made from plots of old vines around Tuchan in Languedoc-Roussillon. This wine is from a parcel of 70–80 year old vines an

£12/£10.80, The Daily Drinker Who can resist a wine this colour? The prettiest of orangey salmon-pinks, and a mouthwatering taste to match: a peal of spice, apricot and redcurrant-cum-raspberry, a supple, generous feel and fresh, citrusy finish. It’s made from Grenache by Domaine Bassac, an 80-ha family-owned and run organic estate in Côtes de Thongue, an IGP (the replacement designation for Vins de Pays) in Languedoc centred on the Thongue river valley between Béziers and Pé

£7.50, Tesco I’ve got a soft spot for Saint-Chinian, Minervois’ less well-known northeast neighbour, and always look for it on restaurant wine lists (usually in vain, it has to be said) and if I need to grab an impromptu bottle of red in a wine shop or supermarket. It’s usually good value, whether cheap like this or a more expensive single-estate wine, but more important is its characteristic flavour: sometimes intensely stony and savoury, sometimes more obviously fruity and

£6.25, The Wine Society If you want to splash out on a red to line up for Easter, let me suggest Château Batailley 2009, Pauillac, which is pretty well perfection already but will go on for years (£50, The Wine Society – I assume you're a member: if not why not?). If you want a conspicuous bargain instead, or as well, to assuage your guilt at splashing the cash on the Batailley (photo below to tempt you), this juicy, ripe, unoaked blend of Grenache, Carignan and Syrah from La

£9 (or £8 on offer), Sainsbury's This is the new vintage of a generous, warm-hearted red blend that's one of the best wines in Sainsbury's range in terms of quality-price ratio (especially on offer at £8 online and in most stores). Syrah and Grenache provide the blackberry and blackcurrant fruit, peppery spice and aromatic herbal notes of the garrigue, while partial ageing in French oak barrels rounds it out with subtle toasty notes. It's a winner with lamb – braised shanks,

As I said in my Around the world in rosé blog, I'm a great admirer of the wines from Sacha Lichine's d'Esclans estate in Côtes de Provence, including Whispering Angel, which technically isn’t an estate wine because the grapes are partly sourced from outside the Château’s own 44ha of vineyards (hence the label Cave d'Esclans, not Château). I've been following the estate more or less since the beginning and each year's wines seem to be better than the last. When, 12 years ago,

£10.95–£13.99, The Wine Society, Exel Wines, The Black Dog Wine Co (UK), Averys of Bristol The McKinlay family's Loubié rosé, is always mouthwatering, but the 2017, which they bottled earlier than usual, is better than ever – brimful of wild strawberry, spice and cherry aromas, bright strawberry-soda and red-apple fruit shot with cranberry and rosemary, and finally a lingering, leafy freshness. I first tasted it at the end of February and then again in mid-May, blind, when it

£13.50, Yapp Bros I haven’t seen the label of the follow-on vintage of this generous, warm-hearted southern Rhône, but for the first time it won't have to carry the words Côtes du Rhône Villages. Like Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Rasteau before it, Cairanne has been elevated to full AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée) status. Houpla! What difference will it make? Well, prices aren’t going to go down, for sure, but in recognition of its new position in the hierarchy Cairanne's p

£17.99, Waitrose Knowing that a lot of wine drinkers raid their wine racks for Châteauneuf-du-Pape over Christmas, I’ve found a cockle-warming offer to replenish stocks. It comes from the cellars of one of the leading producers, the Perrin family, who are renowned for Château de Beaucastel, one of the most sought-after of Châteauneufs. Le Grand Prébois Les Quatres Terroirs is a typical Grenache, Mourvèdre, Syrah blend, but the grapes come from all four of the different Châtea

£10, Morrisons A textbook red from the rugged, once remote but now famed, Catalonian region of Priorat that lies inland from Tarragona. There is white Priorat but most of the wines are powerful, concentrated reds that come with a side order of mineral freshness. Morrisons’ oak-matured 2014 (made by Cellers Unio) combines intense cherry and black fruit, dark chocolate, spice and liquorice with chewy but velvety tannins and the hallmark stony freshness. Like Châteauneuf-du-Pape

£10.99, Co-op If you’re looking for a heartwarming, generous red for the festive feast this Châteauneuf-du-Pape is just the wine, whether you’re eating turkey, beef or goose. It could also be brought into service with a glazed ham joint and/or leftovers on Boxing Day: try popping it in the fridge for 20–30 minutes first – the rich, dark fruit, nutty, sweet earth and smoked paprika spice are just as appetising when served a little cooler than usual. The people behind it are th

£14.50, The Wine Society; £95 for 6, domainejones.com The key to the quality and character of this richly fruity Fitou is the age of the vines: most are more than a century old. They produce miserly quantities, but the compensation is the flavour of the grapes and, in turn, the complex, concentrated wine with its spicy black fruit, herb, nutmeg and dark chocolate flavours, its smoothness and freshness. The vines are Carignan, Grenache and Syrah – typical of Fitou and the wide

£9.50, The Wine Society, £12.95 The Black Dog Wine Company I loved this dry rosé when I tasted it newly shipped in April and I liked it even more when I tasted it recently in a gargantuan ‘blind’ tasting. Not being able to see what you’re tasting (the bottles are masked, not the tasters) is the ultimate test: all you can see is the colour – in this case a very pale pink (paler than it looks in the photo). It smells and tastes just as pretty and fresh as it looks, with the fra