WHITES

2007 Paul Mas La Forge Marsanne, Single Vineyard, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France, Wine Rack, buy three for £6.66 each, Tesco, £7.99. Paul Mas’s new La Forge single-vineyard wines are a huge leap up in quality from the basic PM range. La Forge lies close to Carcassonne, and the marsanne grape has been planted in the coolest part of the estate and harvested at night to hang on to every drop of fruit and acidity. A spicy, toasty wine, with exotic stone fruit flavours.

2007 Grove Mill Marlborough Riesling, New Zealand, Wine Rack, buy three for £6.66 each. Marlborough is best known for its zingy sauvignons, but I tasted gorgeous, racy rieslings there in the early Eighties that were just as good. So give Grove Mill, the world’s first carbon-neutral winery, and its rose-perfumed, lime zest-spiked riesling a round of applause. This makes a comforting apéritif and perfectly partners that classic Christmas Day starter, smoked salmon.

2007 Parallele 45 Côtes du Rhône Blanc, Paul Jaboulet Aîné, France, Wine Rack, buy three for £6.66 each, Wimbledon Wine (020-8540 9979), £7.99. The whites of the Rhône, even in this high-tech age, can be spineless beasts. But Jaboulet, bought by the Frey family from Bordeaux’s Château La Lagune, now has a new manager, winemaker and viticulturist. The improvement in the quality of its blends has been remarkable, and this soft, peachy, nutty rhône gets my vote.

2007 Clay Station Viognier, Lodi, California, Co-op, down to £6.75 until December 7. Some might see the Co-op as the last supermarket to buy wine in, but its buyer knows what’s what. This juicy white is one of the few at this price that deliver viognier’s real varietal flavour without an over-extracted finish. From Lodi in the Central Valley, America’s fruit basket, savour this bold, ripe, peachy, hawthorn-scented white with big festive food.

2007 Le Ralle Greco Basilicata Alovini, Italy, Tanners (01743 234455), £7.95. The Greeks were thought to have introduced the greco grape to Italy, and Oronzo Alò, of Alovini in Basilicata, the arch in Italy’s foot, has here made a good fist of it. Signor Alò is keen on wine wizardry, hence the endless steel tanks, state-of-the-art pumps, filters and bottling lines on view at Alovini. Blessed with a lively scent and lemony finish that make it a useful festive white.

2007 Château de la Jousselinière Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie, Gilbert Chon et Fils, France, Berry Bros & Rudd (01256 340182), £6.95. Not quite the worst label I’ve seen all year, but close. So wrap this delightful, lively, leafy muscadet, boasting lots of precocious, faintly pear drop-scented melon de bourgogne fruit, in a napkin to allow you to concentrate on the wine within. Fuller flavoured and aged on its yeasty lees, it’s a seafood essential.

2007 Château Thieuley, Sauvignon-Sémillon, Bordeaux Sec, France, Vine King (01737 248833), Waitrose, £7.99. Dry white bordeaux improves each vintage and new winemakers such as Francis Courselle’s daughters Sylvie and Marie are well aware of its winning style. I’d much rather have this zesty, greengage-charged, dry ’07 as a festive apéritif, or great smoked salmon or seafood partner, than a boring, needlessly expensive chablis or pouilly-fumé.

2007 Mâcon La Roche Vineuse, Domaine Gonon, France, The Wine Society (01438 740222), £7.95. Over-oaked white burgundy is almost as common as over-oaked New World chardonnay, so it’s a relief to find an unoaked ’07 that still has the wherewithal to cope with the festive spread. 2007 was a top white burgundy vintage and this is a very fine, floral white with lots of vibrant, lively, appley, verdant fruit and a long, punchy, tongue-tingling finish.

2007 Seven Canoes Sauvignon Blanc, Wairau Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand, Wine Rack, buy three for £7.99 each. Eagle-eyed readers will not need telling that the brilliant new Seven Canoes wines are the second label of Wild Rock, part of the top-drawer Craggy Range stable. Unsurprisingly, this bristles with tangy, tingly, assertive, herb, nettle and tropical fruit flavours that are best enjoyed with seafood. Nifty label and name.

STAR WHITE 2007 Vinha da Urze, Douro Valley, Roboredo Madeira Family, Portugal, Marks & Spencer, £7.99. The big surprise at the recent Douro tasting was not how good the reds were, but how dreamy the dry whites were – new investment has produced a raft of terrific, minerally wines. This is an utterly gorgeous, smoky, intensely flavoured, stone fruit-stashed example with a delicious, tangy, nutty finish, the perfect white for big festive food, so buy, buy, buy.

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