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Comment

Christmas Tasting has been and gone and what a triumph it was! Our first tasting in 2006 had barely two dozen members in attendance and only 12 months later we were happy to welcome almost four times that number through the doors.

The line-up of wines on show included some of the club's best-sellers over the last year as well as some newbie's that we thought you would enjoy. As the tour of the printing press got under way, I tasked myself with doing a quick whizz through the wines on show to pick out my top choices.

For just £12.95 the Georges de Roualet Champagne was an absolute bargain. It was engagingly soft on the palate with a gentle mousse and refreshing acidity. There were more than a few bottles ordered to see folk through the Christmas festivities.

When it comes to great value, top-quality whites I remain committed to the blindingly good duo from Domaine du Mage. I have written about these Gascony wines before and I am delighted to have the opportunity to enthuse about them all over again. The Ugni Blanc/Colombard blend (£4.62) is full of vibrant fruits and has a lovely, lively finish.

Equally good, though admittedly a touch pricier, was the estate's Chardonnay/Sauvignon blend (£6.46). The first is a guaranteed party-pleaser and the second will go down a treat with turkey on the big day.

For Burgundy cynics there was the new Macon-Lugny Loron Montvallon (£7.39). So ripe and generous was the fruit on this wine that I could have sworn it had seen a smidgen of oak. But no, the smoothness was all from the very fine chardonnay fruit. I really, really enjoyed it and if you can stretch the budget a bit then this would be my top white choice.

Come the turn of the rosés I am glad to say that the wine critic and wine-drinking public are entirely united. Once again, Domaine du Mage delivered and their fruity, well-balanced pink stole the show.

I am equally glad that we all seemed to see eye to eye on the best-value red too. The Rio Alto Cabernet Sauvignon (£4.85) from Chile was much lauded for its ripe, soft-tannin, blackcurrant fruit and it was one of the top-selling wines of the evening.

One of the questions that people most frequently ask me at such events is this: "If we spend more, do we get more wine for our money?" Generalisations in the wine business are best avoided but, in many cases, spending a couple of pounds more can really make the difference between a good wine and a fabulous one.

I felt that the Nicodemi Montepulciano from Italy (£8.31) made this point particularly well. It scored my top mark of the tasting due to its finesse, multi-layered complexity and fantastic length. You wouldn't call it a blockbuster by any stretch of the imagination and, for me, it was all the more enjoyable for that.

Ted Sandbach, MD of the Oxford Wine Company, has recently thrown his hat into the winemaking ring and the second vintage of his Domaine de la Souterranne Merlot (£6.46) was on show. I had had niggling issues with the first vintage but was delighted with the second. It was showing its southern French roots much more distinctly and had some delicious herbal notes alongside good concentration of fruit.

Click here for The Oxford Times Wine Club offers.

2:15pm Thursday 15th November 2007

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