Sports Calendar

2006 Verdicchi dei Castelli di Jesi Classico, Santa Barbara, Italy, Marks & Spencer, £4.99.
This historic Marches white hails from Italy’s eastern Adriatic coast and from the grape of the same name that has had a facelift in recent years by more quality-minded producers. A lively, elegant, barley sugar-spiked white from the highly regarded Santa Barbara winery and the superior Classico-designated region, it’s ideal with grilled chicken or a creamy white fish dish.

2006 Inycon Fiano, Cantine Settesoli, Sicily, Italy, Waitrose, £4.99.
The Inycon wines are some of Sicily’s best, and brilliant value for money to boot. Filippo Buttafuoco, Settesoli’s winemaker, has taken a full-flavoured, southern Italian white grape, fiano, and seen it through hand-harvesting, cold settling and fermenting with an inoculated yeast strain. The result is a bold white whose seductive banana-scented bouquet leads on to elegant, distinctive, spicy, appley fruit.

2006 Gran Familia White Rioja, Bodegas Castillo de Fuenmayor, Spain, Co-op and Tesco, £4.99.
Spain at long last has embraced new-wave winemaking, with squeaky-clean methods, stainless steel, et al, and this modern white rioja from Briones, the centre of the superior La Rioja Alta region, is the result. Made from hand-harvested viura and malvasia grapes, this rich, smoky-oaky white has the sort of grapey, vanillary fruit that gives it wide aperitif and fish appeal.

2007 Steeple Jack Unwooded Chardonnay, Ballast Stone, South Australia, Tesco, £4.99.
Steeple Jack is Tesco’s splendid new Aussie wine range from the Ballast Stone winery, proud family owners of the biggest vineyard in little-known Currency Creek, with arresting wines and labels to match. Enjoy this unoaked, stainless steel-fermented 14 per cent alcohol chardonnay’s vigorous, rich, ripe, chewy, melon and peach fruit with all manner of robust winter white meat dishes.

2007 Australian Reserve Riesling-Gewürztraminer, Angoves, South Australia, Tesco, £4.49.
Off dry, richly spicy whites like this riesling from Angoves’s vast Nanya Riverland vineyard, enhanced with a 15 per cent dollop of gewürztraminer, make useful winter food partners as happy with oily smoked fish starters as they are with strong stir-fries. Best served cool to enhance the exotic, spicy, rose, peach and lychee-scented flavours.

2007 Casa Leona Sauvignon Blanc, Rapel Valley, Chile, Marks & Spencer, £5.49, down to £4.39 until December 3.
Chilean sauvignon blanc is not in the same league as the country’s fine reds, yet this tasty, precocious 2007 oozes with those distinctive vibrant, mouthwatering green-tomato and green-bean flavours that are a hallmark of New World whites made from this grape. As an intense wine it is best served with strong salads and herby fish.

Reds

2005 Syrah Vin de Pays de l’Ardèche, Cave Saint-Désirat, France, Booths, down £1 to £3.49, today only.
If you love Rhône reds but don’t want to pay top dollar then be quick off the mark today and shell out just £3.49 for this classic mouthful made from this region’s top red grape, syrah. I adored this gorgeous rich, ripe, peppery, full-bodied winter red, with its fine creosotey finish that cries out for steak and kidney pud, or a rich, gamey stew.

2006 Paul Mas Cabernet de Cabernet, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France, Majestic, £5.99 or buy two for £4.99 each until February 4.
Paul Mas is another familiar Top 100 name, a century-old family-run concern with rafts of good, characterful wines. This new red, a 50-50 blend of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, is another star turn, with oodles of ripe, juicy, herbaceous, spicy fruit to the fore. Serve this elegant, Bordeaux-inspired Languedoc red with roasted red meats.

2005 Château Le Fregne, Bordeaux, France, Majestic, £5.49, or buy two for £4.99 each until February 4.
Packing a 14 per cent alcohol punch, this juicy yet correct claret, with lots of austere, herby, full-flavoured fruit, comes from a 16-hectare vineyard that has been in the same family for four generations. Costs are kept down by vinifying partly in concrete tanks and partly in stainless steel, while just half of the blend is aged for under a year in small barrels.

2006 Réserve Naturelle Merlot, Vin de Pays d’Oc, La Maison des Vins Vivants, France, Tesco, £4.99.
Made from hand-picked vines grown on superior Midi sites, this ’06 merlot has the added bonus, for those who care about that kind of thing, of being organic. Given plenty of TLC in the cellar, with fermentation and ageing in stainless steel in order to preserve all that bouncy merlot fruit, this one’s a seductive, easy-swigging winter red.

2005 Château de Pennautier, Cabardès, Comte Nicolas de Lorgeril, France, Majestic, £5.79, or buy two for £4.99 each until November 22.
Since 1620, ten generations of the Marquis de Pennautier’s family have lived at this grand estate overlooking Carcassonne. And it’s good to report that this classic cabardes red, a hotch-potch of Bordeaux and Midi grapes, is an unoaked, fruit-driven triumph, bursting with beefy, herby, supple, cedary fruit.

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