Time to start making your Christmas list

WE’RE mainly focusing on one particular retailer for this week’s highlighted wines, but let’s start with the exception — the Cono Sur Pinot Noir is widely available at independents as well as the big supermarkets.

It earns its place here in the run-up to Christmas as a single-bottle solution to the traditional main course of turkey and ham and all the trimmings — crisp, bright, fresh pinot noir.

The rest are all from Dunnes Stores which has just kicked off its latest price reduction cycle and today I’m highlighting some of the best wines among their current reductions. Bearing in mind some of the ‘destination’ wines that people will be thinking of for the festive dinner, I’m emphasising some of their excellent (and very good value) Bordeaux, along with a brilliant South African red and a shellfish-friendly reserve sauvignon blanc.

However there are dozens of other good wines reduced in price at Dunnes right now, far too many for this page, and I’ve continued the selection on my blog online at http://blakecreedon.wordpress.com.

* Speaking of all things online, next Saturday I’ll be making a comprehensive survey of the best sites to buy wine for home delivery in time for Christmas.

* WE pay more attention to wines for Christmas dinner than any other for the obvious reasons — even apart from the religious significance, we all seem to have a primaeval urge to put together a sumptuous feast assembled from the best ingredients at this time of year. And you do want to accompany the fine fish and meat and fowl with good wine.

There’s a further incentive to spend a little time over the wine list. For many of us, it’s the biggest feast we put together in terms of the number sitting down to it. And that’s a great justification for spreading our wings and extending the drinks repertoire beyond the red and the white. I’m particularly thinking of two classes of wines that could turn your feast into a banquet.

Sparkling

Good bubbly is a must. Have it as an aperitif or after dinner; raise it to toast each other for having gotten past the darkest days of the year; to celebrate an engagement; or just because it’s delicious. I see no reason to buy Champagne. The people in that part of France, bless them, have managed to maintain astonishingly high prices but the rest of the wine world has caught up in terms of quality and there is now top class fizz coming in from France, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Australia and Chile. Many are widely available such as Jacob’s Creek Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir. Or try classy Green Point Brut NV from Victoria in Australia (€19.99 at Dunnes, Centra, Spar, SuperValu, O’Donovans).

The best retailer for bubbles has to be Marks & Spencer which stocks a great cava as well as a handful of value sparklers from New Zealand.

Dessert wine

A delicious accompaniment to coffee and cheese and fruit after dinner, it’s well worth considering picking up a such as the classic, botrytis semillon.

This used to mean Sauternes but the dessert wines from that region are usually prohibitively expensive. One exception is the Sauternes in the Thomas Barton range, and happily there’s also a slew of affordable but delicious dessert wines from Australia such Peter Lehmann Botrytis Semillon Barossa Valley (11.99 from Tesco, Superquinn, O’Donovan’s and O’Brien's).