£10.99–£14.89, Costco, The Wine Society, Ocado, Vintage Roots, Cheers, Amazon A delicious, distinctive and original red wine seems a positive way to start the new year. That Santa Tresa's organic Cerasuolo di Vittoria is outstandingly good value and a magician when it comes to matching food only adds to its lustre. Cerasuolo di Vittoria, Sicily's only DOCG (the top tier in Italy's wine classification system), is a small but varied region – topographically, geologically and cl

£10, Tesco For those people who still need a red wine for the Christmas Day feast, I've picked this Cape Cabernet Merlot because it's versatile enough to go with most of the main Christmas options and should appeal to a wide audience. It's a full-bodied, poised and balanced blend of just over 60% Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot, Cabernet Franc and a smidgen of Malbec, bringing together cassis fruitiness, currant-leaf freshness, smooth dark chocolate and savoury black tapenade

As ever, my annual sweet and fortified wine guide is the place to rummage for many of the wine world's greatest bargains. More than that, it’s a source of aperitifs and of restorative and comforting wines for long dark evenings (dry, medium and sweet); it's a place to research accompaniments or alternatives to puddings and cheese; and it’s a provider of inspiration for gifts. It’s divided into three: sweet wines, then sherries, where you’ll find dry wines for aperitifs as wel

Welcome to my annual roundup of white, orange and rosé wines for the festive season. Ranging freely through styles, regions and grape varieties, it's designed to cover all occasions and eventualities throughout Christmas, new year and other festivals and celebrations of the season. There are wines for the towering occasions, lots of inspiration for gifts and, no less important, wines for the times when absolutely nothing is happening. All are ready for drinking, but some will

It goes without saying that it's always a pleasure to publish my annual round-up of Champagnes to meet the varied needs of the festive season. This year the bottles start at an undiscounted £13.99 and end with an indulgent magnum at £260 and the styles range from from Blanc de Blancs to Blanc de Noirs to rosé and from vintage to non-vintage to multi-vintage (the new buzzword). If you're looking for ultimate bottles, you should also consider three that I reviewed here during t

£16.99, Ocado This fascinating red wine is a Vino de la Tierra de Cádiz. In other words, it's from sherry country, where there was an old tradition of making red wines that had largely lapsed. A small-scale revival has got underway this century, helped along by the granting of the Vino de la Tierra designation in 2005. Moncloa is produced by the González family of González Byass and Tio Pepe sherry fame from their own vineyards and is a blend that includes what they say is an

Welcome to my annual roundup of red wines. Ranging freely across styles, regions and grape varieties, it's designed to cover all occasions and eventualities through the festive season. There are wines to suit the absolutely-nothing-is-happening evenings, wines for the 'this deserves something special' dinners and lots of inspiration for gifts. All these wines are ready for drinking, but some will also continue to develop. They're listed in ascending order of price, going from

£11.99 on offer, waitrosecellar The rocky, arid Saint Chinian appellation in Languedoc is much better known for its red wines, but its whites – just 5% of production – are always worth trying. Witness this captivating example with its late-summer orchard fruit, dried flower and hay aromas and full, yet elegantly mineral, spice-edged palate – a wine bound by energy, texture, structure and freshness. The grape varieties are Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Vermentino and Viognier (40

£11, Booths supermarkets; £12.50–£14.95, many independents* This is Chateau Musar's third red wine, a fruity, unoaked blend of Cinsault, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon (50:35:15 in the 2019 vintage) designed to be drunk young and to be an introduction to the more serious, long-lived, oak-aged Musar reds, Chateau Musar itself and Hochar Père et Fils (which you can also find labelled Aana, the village where the grapes are grown). Musar Jeune Red doesn't need decanting or ageing –

£10, Tesco A crowd-pleasing and pleasingly characterful unoaked dry white from deservedly fashionable Sicily, with peach, pear, herb and citrus flavours, a smooth, rounded texture and preserved-lemon and grapefruit-peel grip. Neither of the two grape varieties is native to Sicily – Fiano is from Campania and Grecanico is better known in the north as Garganega, the principal variety of Soave – but both are at home on the island and they make a good partnership, Fiano giving we

£8.50/£10, Morrisons I had scheduled this Tuscan red for next week, but it's on offer at £8.50 until 2 November, so I've pulled it forward to allow more time for everyone to buy it at the lower price, although it's good value at the full (£10) price, should you miss out. Morrisons wine buyers are understandably proud of the wine, which they make in collaboration with, I quote, "one of the oldest and most highly regarded wine estates in Tuscany". They're tight-lipped about who

£7.49 on offer, Waitrose This is Malbec with the succulent, ripe fruit typical of the grape variety in Argentina (all black cherry, plum and cassis), but freshened with cooler, savoury black pepper and black olive flavours that recall Malbec in its original French homeland of Cahors. It's a winning combination and a beautifully tailored wine, too, with a lot of finesse for a wine at this price level (talking of which, it's very good value at its full price and a bargain at th

£6.49, Aldi After this year's biting spring frosts in Marlborough, there aren't going to be many New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs at this price for long – certainly not of this quality. It's dry, zingy and springy with textbook elderflower, gooseberry, passion-fruit, lime and currant-leaf flavours, none of them overpowering or out of kilter. Even if your thoughts were edging towards something more wintry, it's worth taking advantage of this while you can. It's part of Aldi's Spec

£7.99 (on offer), Waitrose It hasn't come soon enough but Cinsault (or Cinsaut) has finally shed the label 'workhorse' that stalked it for so long and is being valued as a red grape variety in its own right, especially when the vines are old, as here. It's surprising in some ways that it should have been so under-appreciated. It claims status in Châteauneuf-du-Pape as one of the permitted varieties, it's a key component of many Provence rosés and it's one parent of the import

I hadn't planned to do a Pinot Noir post to coincide with International Pinot Noir Day today, but it's a good opportunity to spread the love, not least because I was bowled over by the two Akitu wines below, especially the A1 2018, and by the latest Craggy Range Aroha. There's also an amphora-fermented Pinot from Shropshire, which is a revelation and a triumph. Who knew England could do this? And there are two Burgundies I wanted to highlight, although the delightful, mature

£12.99, down from £16.99 until 1 June, Waitrose I was going to recommend this Malbec a few weeks ago but then spotted the offer that started yesterday: £4 off from now until 1 June – too tempting to resist, especially as the weather hasn't exactly been demanding quintessential summer wines recently. The grapes are from the Bodega Luigi Bosca's estate vineyards at altitudes of 900–1100 metres in the Mendoza sub-regions of Luján de Cuyo and Valle de Uco, the latter giving fresh

£11.50–£12, The Wine Society, Tesco Full-bodied, succulent, Viognier-based dry white from one of the big names in a region much better known for its red wines – and one that doesn't usually major on Viognier in its whites. But it's the 60% Viognier (supported by Roussanne and Marsanne) that leads the way with fleshiness and soft texture, blossomy aromas and lush peach, cream and patisserie flavours. There's a sprinkling of white-pepper spiciness and a squeeze of grapefruit, t

£8, Tesco Sunshine would be welcome with this racy dry white, but I'm happy to settle for lesser weather as long as I have the wine in my glass. Western Australian Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blends have a style of their own – energising, positive and aromatic with the incisive green fruit of the Sauvignon filled out by subtle, blossomy softness from the Semillon (24% here) and enhanced, in this case, by a mouthwatering smoky, flinty character, green apple, herb and elderflower

£10, Morrisons There'a a lot of noise about orange wines – wines made from white grapes fermented with their skins like red wines, rather than without skins – but they're still very much a minority sport, even though it's how wine was originally made whatever the colour of the grapes. It's good, then, to see Rigal in southwest France venturing into the arena and making a success with a characterful local grape variety and the UK's Morrisons supermarkets taking the wine on. In

£17.99, Waitrose I scheduled this lovely Pinot for the Easter weekend when I tasted it back in January and it now coincides neatly with the The Big English Wine Easter, a programme of online events – mostly on instagram – designed to support English wineries and raise money for The Drinks Trust and Hospitality Action (producers will contribute a percentage of sales from the weekend). The main event is on Saturday 3 April, from 7pm – 8pm, when wine lovers will open bottles of