£35.95, The Whisky Exchange; £38.99, Handford Wines; £44.99, Selfridges The first week of October is National Champagne Week. I don’t know why – something to cheer us up as we view the prospect of months of cooler, darker days perhaps? Whatever the reason this is my contribution to the festivities/commiserations. It goes without saying that I’ve chosen it because it’s so good: fine bubbles, beautiful citrusy fruit opening out into richer brioche flavours, then a sustained, fr

£16, Oddbins There are lots of misconceptions about red burgundy, two of the most glaring being that it’s a full-bodied wine and always costs an arm and a leg. The best red burgundies are fascinating and complex in flavour but never heavyweights. They can’t be cheap, not least because of the tiny quantities they’re made in, but there are alternatives to the hallowed names. From the right grower, burgundies bearing the simple Bourgogne designation can be beautifully pure and g

£22.99, D Byrne; £27.99, Corks Out, corksout.com English wine week starts on Saturday – a great opportunity to visit an English vineyard or simply to drink an English wine. I’ve chosen a sparkling wine because it’s what we do best, growing the same grape varieties as Champagne in similar soils and climate. There are so many good ones it's hard to choose – Nyetimber, Hambledon, Wiston, Hattingley, Gusbourne, Exton Park, Ambriel and Ridgeview were all in the running – but in th

£13.75, or £12.50 in any 12-bottle mix, Lea & Sandeman This is one of the most unusual and delicious wines I’ve come across in ages (quirky wines can be more challenging than delicious). It’s named Orange because of its colour, but it’s not one of the so-called orange wines that have a bit of a cult following in fashionable London restaurants: those are made from white grapes where the juice, skins and pips have been fermented all together instead of just fermenting the clear

If you know where to look, there are plenty of wines with modest alcohol but bags of character and flavour Prompted by the UK government's new alcohol guidelines, I've looked through my recent tasting notes for wines that have low to moderate levels of alcohol, but which certainly don't fall short in the flavour and character stakes. The dry whites I'm recommending are all 12% abv, or lower, and the reds are 12.5% abv or lower, but bear in mind that EU labelling laws allow a

£9.75, Tesco, £11, Sainsbury's, £9.99/£14.99, Majestic The juicy, sweet fruit and almost tannin-free suppleness of a good New Zealand Pinot Noir make it an ideal red to have on standby throughout Christmas. Avowed white wine drinkers will often drop their guard with Pinot Noir and it’s a wine that can cope with the richly flavoured turkey stuffings and trimmings which often trip up more austere, classical reds. It can equally well be served with a rib of beef or gammon and Bo

Ten red wines to serve with the Christmas feast Wines listed in ascending order of price. I've given a UK stockist (or two) for each, but you can find other stockists in the UK and other countries on wine-searcher.com Cimarosa Carmenère 2012, Colchagua, Chile Crowd-pleasing, fresh, velvet-soft Carmenère with a typical, smoky, green-pepper edge to the blackberryish fruit. A match for turkey, but not up to goose. £6.99, Lidl Domaine Mas Barrau Cabernet Franc 2014, Pays du Gard,

Ten Champagnes to put you in the mood for Christmas and all the rest Listed in ascending order of price, ignoring special offers and quantity discounts. I've given a UK stockist and price (sometimes two) for each, but you can find other stockists in the UK and other countries on wine-searcher.com. Les Pionniers Brut NV Champagne Biscuity, rounded and fresh. Consistently good; remarkable value. The Co-operative's own label. 50% Pinot Noir, 30% Pinot Meunier, 10% Chardonnay. Th

£37.95, Eton Vintners, £42, Berry Bros & Rudd This fabulous Champagne was voted best value of the night at a tasting called Ultimate Champagne that I co-hosted this week. Louis Roederer Cristal 1995 was voted best, irrespective of price (around £300 a bottle), but the sumptuous Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve (be careful not to confuse it with any of the other Heidsiecks) is a Champagne niche enough to make a perfect present for a connoisseur and approachable enough to be a pe

Marine algae sprays, anti-hail nets, a secret vineyard… I was in Burgundy in June and some fascinating things emerged at visits to Louis Latour, a company whose tendrils reach unusual places. As well as being a domaine producer with 27ha of Grands Crus and a négociant with an outpost in the Ardèche, it owns Simonnet-Febvre in Chablis, Henri Fessy in Beaujolais and, rare in Europe, it has its own cooperage (I’ll revisit the latter in a future post). Back to sprays, nets and se

£15.99, Waitrose There are going to be plenty of opportunities to hunker down with big, beefy reds in the months to come, so here, for the optimists hoping for some last rays of summer sun, is summer in a glass: a beautifully fragrant, light red - all English roses, cherries and a delicate veneer of polished oak. The only thing it hasn't got is a suntan, but that's because Pinot Noir, the thoroughbred better known for producing great red Burgundy, is a red grape variety that