PERFECT BOXING DAY REDS

2017 Louis Jadot BeaujolaisVillages, Combe Aux Jacques, France (Half bottle, £5.50, Morrisons) THERE are few decent wines bottled in halves these days. With a wild strawberry scent and a slippery-smooth palate, this is wonderful with poultry and game. It has enough intensity to step up to lighter meat dishes, too. 2017 Famille Perrin Ventoux, France (£8.75, Oddbins) IGNORE the fighting price, because this wine carries a lot of weight, spice and power. It shows just how underrated the Ventoux region of France is, while demonstrating the absolute skill of the Perrin winery. Like a mini Châteauneuf-du-Pape in flavour terms, this is a hidden weapon of a wine. 2017 Gran Sasso ‘La Bella Addormentata’ Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Italy (£10.99, wineman. £10.99, cambridgewine.com; £11.60, toscanaccio. co.uk; £11.99, the winereserve.co.uk; £12.50, highbury vintners.co.uk) ONE of my surprise finds of the year, this Monte is an imposing wine with deep blackberry flavours and a nice, long finish. Abruzzo is not one of the most famous wine regions, but I am finding more and more great-value, highly skilled wines from this area and Gran Sasso is a future classic. 2017 Bilbo Domaine de la Réserve d’O, Languedoc, France (£19.50, reduced to £17.50 each in a case of 12, lea andsandeman.co.uk) I FELL for this wine on the very first sip. It reminded me of the first time I tasted a swarthy French red nearly four decades ago. It’s 60 per cent Grenache, 35 per cent Cinsault and 5 per cent Syrah. There’s no oak, as the fruit is so well-appointed, with soaring black fruit and spice notes. Look no further for a thoroughly decadent red. 2015 Château Mazeris Canon Fronsac, Bordeaux, France (£17, Oddbins) THIS Château is one of my favourite in Canon-Fronsac and, in 2015, it played a blinder with heady black fruit on the nose and a plush, densely packed palate. It is wines such as this that make Bordeaux great and, if you don’t finish your bottles this Christmas, you can be assured that this wine will live for another five years with ease. 2015 Mount Pleasant Philip Shiraz, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia (£11, Co-op) COMING from one of the most famous wineries in Australia, this is a classy, old-style Shiraz, with a foresty nose and a deep, long finish. As far removed from a blockbuster South Australian Shiraz as you could imagine in flavour terms.