Helen McGinn I get loads of messages every week asking for wine recommendations for various things – a birthday present, a special dinner, something for the fridge door – but at the moment all anyone wants to talk about is what to buy for Christmas. So this week’s wine recommendations are both around £10 and I’d happily have them on my table on Christmas Day (they’d also make great presents, just saying). If you’re looking for a case of wine I’ve put together two special cases with my beloved local wine shop The Solent Cellar. There’s an Essentials case and if you fancy splashing out a bit more there’s a Hand-Picked Christmas Crackers case too. Limited stocks of both so get in there while it lasts, all details are here.
I also want to tell you about our new WineTime tee (see picture, it’s under all those sequins!) created with our friend Rae at FWP By Rae, the maker of all my favourite wine-related items of clothing. She designed us a special tee to celebrate mine & Kat’s Instagram WineTime Lives and for every tee sold from now until the 31st December Rae is making a donation to two very special charities. See her website here for details, it’s currently out of stock (the first batch flew out!) but she’s got more coming next week.
As ever, I’m here for all your wine-related questions so do always ask if you need any specific advice but I’ll just remind you that my new online wine course with Create Academy is now live! It would make a brilliant present for the wine lover in your life (if you don’t mind me saying so myself). Click here for more information including a free lesson so you can get a feel for what it’s like.
Next week we’ll do festive cocktails for the lols.
Cheers, winos x
Current white in the fridge: Yering Station The Elms Chardonnay
Price: £10.49 - Buy From Waitrose
From Victoria’s Yarra Valley, this is just the kind of Australian Chardonnay I love. Basically it’s a way more sophisticated take on the goblets of Chardonnay I used to drink in All Bar One back in my twenties. Ripe and warm with gorgeous stone fruit flavours (think peach and apricots) and a touch of creaminess, it’ll work brilliantly with roast chicken or turkey (you can see where I’m going here). I think it might pop under £9 in Waitrose this side of Christmas so keep an eye out.
Current red in the rack: Discovery Collection Morellino Di Scansano
Price: £9.00 - Buy From Sainsbury's
We had this one on Saturday Kitchen last weekend, it’s such good value for money. From vineyards around the Medieval village of Scansano in Tuscany, Morellino is the local name for the Sangiovese grape (the same one behind the wines of Chianti). It’s Tuscan to the core with bright cherry fruit flavours and a distinct herby character made by Cecchi, a great producer in the region. It will take on the flavours of turkey and all the trimmings quite happily so one to keep in mind for Christmas Day.
Dear Helen, We are hosting our Wine Group’s Christmas tasting and would love it if you could recommend 3 seasonal whites, 3 seasonal reds and a bottle of something bubbly to start the evening. We try not to spend more than £10 per bottle. I would really appreciate your help with this. The evening is on 19 December. Many thanks Cheryl
Hi Cheryl, I’ll put some on the blog this week that should help! x
Dear Helen
We are hosting NYE this year and I thought I would make different curries meat and vegetarian. What wines would you suggest goes well with these foods.
Merry Christmas
Jane