Fear not: with just a few days to go until Christmas, thanks to the recession there are still lots of great bottles on shop shelves to give and receive. The trade as a whole had a thoroughly miserable third quarter, with wine sales in particular down by 10 per cent, and so far Christmas looks like going the same way. All of which means a wine windfall for those who have left buying festive cheer until the last minute, and anyone brave enough (and with a budget big enough) to stock up on bargain bottles now for next year.

One of the best wine gifts is membership of the Wine Society. Decades ago, you had to be proposed by an existing member to join, but this non-profit-making concern, founded in the Albert Hall in 1874, now accepts allcomers. This year, the Society’s extra present to you is a £20 credit on every share you buy by December 31. Just phone 01438 741177, shell out £40 for each share, and wait for effusive thanks.

All I want for Christmas, well, almost all, is a decent corkscrew. I have broken so many corkscrews this year, even those ridiculously expensive, once infallible Screwpulls. Which explains why I’m off to Robert Dyas to buy a clutch of the screwpull imitators: Antony Worrall Thompson’s Luxury Corkscrew Sets, given away at £9.99 each, instead of £79.99 for the real McCoy.

Christmas Day hosts still pondering their menu should snap up the brilliant Catena white and red Argentine pair at Waitrose. Conveniently down to £8.79, this duo goes back up to £10.99 from January 6. At a pinch, the 2006 Catena Chardonnay, one of Argentina’s finest whites – all dreamy, sweet, hazelnut-scented fruit – can even partner turkey. Its toothsome red partner, the 2006 Catena Malbec, all elegant, herby, dried cranberry fruit, most certainly can.

If you are still stuck on what to serve with the festive bird and are happy to forgo burgundy and claret, your best bet by far is a juicy, fruit-driven New World cabernet that has the alcohol and oomph necessary to cope. Fetzer’s tried and trusted 2006 Valley Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon (Co-op, £7.63; Waitrose, £7.99) delivers lots of suitably rich, velvety berry fruit. If you are doing your big festive shop in Tesco, the bottle to buy for turkey and all the trimmings is the enormous, fat, creamy, smoky, blackcurrant pastille-licked 2004 d’Arenberg Feathered Dinosaur for £17.99. Apart from turkey, feathered and furred game also meet their match with this one.

Turning up with a fine bottle of vintage port as your contribution to the Christmas feast always impresses. This year, pop into Majestic Wine to pick up Warre’s 1996 Quinta do Cavadinha, £22 or buy two for £20 each, all gorgeous, seductive, rose-scented spice, and worth every penny. Happy Christmas.

STAR BUYS

2007 Finest Chablis, Burgundy, Louis Josse, France, Tesco, down to £5.98 until January 6. Not much more than a fiver to spend on a classy Christmas chablis? Then this bottle, blessed with lots of lively, floral, verdant, faintly nutty fruit, has your name on it.

2006 Finest Saint Joseph, Rhône, Caves St-Pierre, France, Tesco, down to £6.49 until January 6. While in Tesco, skate over to its French reds and grab as much as you can of this cheering, fat, ripe, spicy, 14 per cent alcohol, big food-suitable bottle, from a good northern rhône vintage.

2005 Château de Saÿe, Bordeaux Supérieur, France, Marks & Spencer, £7.99. Can’t get to a Majestic (see below)? Then zoom into your nearest M&S and queue up for this top vintage claret whose ripe, full, fleshy style, from the Sichel dynasty, closes on powerful, faintly creosotey fruit, and needs big food to show at its best.

2006 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Les Closiers, Ogier, France, Marks & Spencer, down to £11.99 until December 31. 2006 was a great year here, so you get that extra dash of finesse with this burly red, whose herby, inky fruit and 14.5 per cent alcohol needs bold festive fare to tame it.

2004 Château Meyney, Saint-Estèphe, Bordeaux, France, Majestic, £19.99. I’m not a big fan of claret and turkey, but old and young fogeys in search of Bordeaux’s best will tuck into this robust Saint-Estèphe from a good, not great, vintage – blessed with earthy, truffley, exotic fruit – and rejoice.

2002 La Croix de Gay, Pomerol, Bordeaux, France, Majestic, £25. Again, not a top-drawer vintage, but drinking deliciously now and oozing with the light, lively, leafy, seductive, spicy, plummy, right-bank merlot fruit that makes Pomerol such a prized claret commune.

jane.macquitty@thetimes.co.uk

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