This is a very deeply coloured and flavoursome wine as you would expect from a Malbec based wine. It displays rich plummy, jammy Gimblett Gravels fruit notes on the nose with complementary notes of tobacco and dried herbs. On the palate it is a medley of compex fruit flavours supported by a generous mouthfeel and age worthy tannins. A full bodied and complex wine, and an ideal accompaniment to red meat dishes.

A great wine made in tiny quantities from the cool North Otago Waitaki Valley where hot days, cool nights and a long growing season produce high quality grapes in small volumes. The Valli winemaking team of Grant Taylor, Jenn Parr and Karl Coombes hand harvest all their grapes, whole bunch pressing them to barrel, including 22% new oak. Full solids with lees stirring during maturation for 12 months gives this wine body to burn and a lingering flavoursome finish comes from the high acidity from this edgy cool climate, nicely balanced by all that lees aging. A beautiful complex Chardonnay to drink now or to cellar. 

Yalumba is a family owned and fiercely independent wine producer with roots back to 1849. This is their take on the classic Australian blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

The Cabernet Sauvignon was sourced from four vineyards in the Barossa Valley. The diversity of the vineyard selection provides the rich, lifted Cabernet Sauvignon aromatics and palate structure for which The Signature is renowned. The Shiraz comes from vineyards of varying age, with the oldest planted in 1925. These blocks are of sandy loam, featuring yellow sand and ochre clay over red clay. The combination of these Barossa Valley blocks provides a Shiraz with sweetness, fullness, depth and layers of complexity.

Matured for 19 months in 25% new French barriques and Hungarian hogsheads, balance in older French and Hungarian barriques and hogsheads.

Deep, dense purple-red in colour. Seductive and alluring florals, cool mints, red pomegranate with fine blackberry fruits and dark cherry aromas. The palate is delightfully generous with dark red cherry fruit that merges into ironstone tannins. A medium to full bodied wine with a long, flowing tannin profile. A very refined and elegantly styled Signature

Serpico is the flagship Mitolo Cabernet and is made using the Amarone technique of drying grapes before fermentation. This process concentrates flavour, contributing mid palate plushness, complexity and mouth coating silky tannins. 

Winemaker Ben Glaetzer describes it incredibly aptly, we think, as a brooding, dark and deliciously seductive red. Its smoothness is thanks to the dried grape  winemaking method, which provides intensely rich and concentrated dark fruit flavours to an already powerful grape variety – Cabernet Sauvignon. The dried grape method also seems to soften and smooth Cabernet’s sometimes edgy tannin structure by providing a suppleness and richness to the palate.

This wine was named after one of Frank Mitolo’s heroes, namely Frank Serpico, who fought crime in the United States police force. 

Like it namesake, this is powerful, structured and focussed. 

This is a wine for now or the long haul in a good cellar. 

From the winery

This wine is much like the man it is named after, Frank Serpico, who went against all odds to expose an immense depth of corruption in the New York police force

Eight months aging in French and American oak barrels makes this bold red blend a beautiful partner with cheddar or your favourite tasty cheese. It's made from Touriga Nacional, Alicante Bouschet and Syrah, each adding powerful spicy flavour notes and deep plummy flavours, nicely balanced by bold spice and and a lingering, refreshing finish. .

The Alentejo region benefits from the warm Mediterranean climate and ripens deeply coloured red grapes such as this tasty trio.

Burgundy-trained Stéphane Ogier is a northern Rhône wunderkind, says Master of Wine Jancis Robinson. He makes this full bodied, fresh southern Rhône blend of about 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah from vines substantially grown in Violès on Le Plan de Dieu supplemented by some from Visan. Soils are a mixture of limestone and blue clay. Average vine density is 7,000 vines per hectare with the average age a very heartening 30 to 50 years. Vines are hand-harvested – yields averaging 40 hl/ha – before being sorted in both vineyard and cellar.

 Ogier joined his father Michel in 1997 to work the family vineyards and built a glamorous new winery just south of Ampuis overlooked by the steep Côte Rôtie terraces. And he has now built a second winery in the southern Rhône to make wines like Le Temps est Venu without having to ship the grapes too far.

Dolcetto is a one of the hidden treasures of Piemonte with its smooth rounded mouthfeel and impressive body and drinkability. This is a deliciously complex example from Dogliani in the region. 

Plantings of this grape declined in the 1990?s in favour of the more expensive, easier to market Barolo and Barberescos. It came down to money, not quality and quietly the wine world mourned. Luckily a few faithful enclaves remained faithful to the grape like in Dogliani just south of Alba.

The wine is jet black in colour with a sumptuous nose of blackberries dusted with exotic spices - fruity with great length and structure.

This complex and affordable Chianti Classico is a full bodied, ripe and powerful wine made from a blend of 90% Sangiovese, 5% Colorino and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, each grape contributing depth, body and balance to the wine. 

This brand was traditionally produced by a well known cooperative with over 60 different grape growers contributing to the blend but the brand has now been acquired by Tenute Piccini, which employs the highly respected consultant oenologist, Riccardo Cotarella.

THE CHIANTI CLASSICO APPELLATION

Chianti Classico is the heart of the wider Chianti production zone and its wines are distinguished by a trademarked black rooster on their labels. The wines of Chianti Classico are higher in quality and noticeably so in taste than wines labelled Chianti, which come from a broader area in Tuscany. The wines taste better because the vines are planted on hillsides with a higher degree of  iron rich soils and a greater diurnal temperature range, which provides more powerful, riper fruit flavours, which are balanced by higher acidity thanks to the cooler night time temperatures. 

The Sangiovese grape must make up 80% of all wines labelled Chianti Classico compared to 70% Sangiovese for wines labelled Chianti. 

Chianti was first defined as a wine producing sub region within Tuscany in 1716 by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III, whose wanted to protect the integrity of the wines and prevent fraud. The Chianti Classico Wine Consortium was formed in 1924 with the distinctive Black Rooster trademark chosen to feature on the labels. 

A gorgeous fruit forward, modern Rioja with minimal oak use from the Rioja Alavesa region; the smallest of the Rioja sub-regions and comparable to Rioja Alta in terms of its high quality. The nose is pure and expressive of dark cherries and bramble fruit and the palate shows depth and purity with superb balance from fine chalky tannins and keen acidity. 

Sang des Cailloux Vacqueryas is a labour of love and tastes like it. It's a blend of 70% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre and Cinsault and named after the daughters of Serge Férigoule: Floureto, Doucinello, and Azalaïs. 

All grapes are hand harvested and fermented with natural yeasts in cement cuves with daily pumpovers then moved into 450 litre barrels for 12 months' maturation before being bottled unfined and unfiltered. 

This is a delicious, full bodied dry red from one of the great appellations of the Southern Rhone Valley in France. 

This is wine made from a unique clone of Gamay Noir known as "Saint Romain" from the Côte Roannaise which lies to the north west of Lyon at a latitude comparable to Beaujolais. The wine is very Burgundian with more savouriness than one would encounter in most Beaujolais. La Chapelle is their flagship wine, with masses of concentration and depth.

Chateau Roubine is one of the oldest wine estates in France and has been making wine since the 14th Century in Provence in the south east. The property was awarded with the cru classe title in 1953 by the French Ministry of Agriculture. 

The bottle this rose is in today reflects the chateau's long history and is printed with the Templar coat of arms, featuring a dragon and lion protected by the sun's rays. The vineyard is planted in 13 different grape varieties and this is a dry, light bodied, refreshing Mediterranean rose. 

This great Champagne is made by the Epernay based producer, Champagne Lombard, and it is staggeringly good quality with amazing balance and complexity for this price. 

Smooth, zingy, citrusy and beautifully toasty. A rare good deal.