Simon Hoggart

Simon Hoggart presents the Spectator Wine Club's offer of the month for January 2009

Now is a good time to lay in wine. Merchants are selling off stock to raise capital; meanwhile they are nervously waiting for the grisly effects of the pound’s recent fall. And while some growers on the Continent will cut their own prices in euros, if only to keep market share in the UK, there is little doubt that hefty rises are inevitable. You may have heard yourself last week at the station booking office saying to the ticket clerk, ‘How much to Manchester? I could fly to New York for that!’ Similarly you could well discover your favourite wines will be uncomfortably pricier.

Still, our motto here at The Spectator wine club is to drink only good stuff, and if we can still find it at modest prices, so much the better. Tanner’s, the excellent Shrewsbury merchants, are giving generous discounts on all these wines, and I have to say that at £108 — an average of just £9 a bottle — the mixed case is excellent value.

The Gewurtztraminer 2006 from the Pfaffenheim Co-op (1) is wonderful and a snip at £7.15, almost a tenner a case off. I adore the rich, unctuous, lychee, spice and vanilla taste of Gewurtz, though at its very best it can be slightly overpowering. If you found a Rubens in someone’s sitting room, you’d admire it but feel it was slightly de trop. This is lighter, drier, and perfect with food or as an aperitif.

Petit Chablis is from the fringe of the Chablis area, grown on Kimmeridge limestone formed, in large part, from crushed ancient oyster shells. Knowing Chablis’ affinity with seafood, you will not be surprised. This 2007 from the Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard (2) is a remarkable wine from a very good year. I have tasted many inferior bottles from nominally better parts of the appellation. Delicious: a great example of Chablis as it ought to be and often isn’t. Reduced by £12 a case to £8.33 a bottle.

Château Doisy-Daëne (3) is one of the great names in Barsac. But they also make a dry wine of majestic power and quality. Dry Bordeaux whites have been low in esteem — I blame the cheap watery Entre-deux-Mers we drank as students. But this 2006 is a stunning, sumptuous, yet entirely dry blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. It is made by Denis Dubourdieu, who is professor of oenology at Bordeaux university, and it proves that academics can succeed triumphantly in the real world. Nearly £17 a case off. I adore it; so will you.

Now the reds. At only £4.95 a bottle, the 2008 Shiraz from Wide River, South Africa (4), is fantastic. At an informal tasting everyone raved, putting it well ahead of some much pricier wines. Lively, zesty, packed with ripe fruit — perfect for daily glugging or at parties where people will think you a very generous host.

If you like top-rate Rioja you will love the Gran Marius 2003, Reserva Seleccion (5) from Almansa in south-east Spain. It’s a blend of four grapes, chiefly Tempranillo, and like Rioja it is aged in American oak. It is a wine with real oomph, loads of complexity, sinuous and velvety, and would be incredible with game, casseroles, steaks or anything really. We loved it with a simple roast chicken. Again, £12 off makes it a considerable bargain.

Finally, a sad story attaches to this last wine. Marc Pages was the winemaker at La Tour de By (pronounced ‘bee’) in the Médoc. He died just over a year ago, but not before he had made this 2005 (6), which he called ‘the vintage of a lifetime’. How consoling it must be to pass away knowing you have achieved the very best you could in your field. Unsentimentally, Robert Boutflower is offering £15 off per case, and at £13.30 a bottle, this is terrific value for claret lovers.

Delivery, as ever, is free, and there is a mixed case containing two of each wine. You could try that, and then re-order your favourites, still at the low offer price.