The Independent Boxing Day Wine quiz: Your chance to win James Bond's favourite fizz
POSTED ON 26/12/2009Boxing Day means that it's time to stir the grey matter with a glass of something suitably refreshing and rise to the challenge of our 2009 Wine Trivia Quiz. Test your knowledge of the great and trifling wine events of the past year and you stand a chance of winning a magnificent six-bottle case of James Bond's champagne of choice, Bollinger Special Cuvée. We're also offering the runner-up a superb bottle of Hidalgo's rare Palo Cortado Viejo VORS (delivery to UK mainland addresses only), worth £65.
50 Best Wines for Christmas
POSTED ON 19/12/2009Independent 50 Best 19 December 2009
Under £6
2008 Carta Vieja Sauvignon Blanc, Maule Valley, Chile.
This aromatic little number from Chile’s lesser-know Maule Valley is an attractively pure sauvignon blanc with undertones of blackcurrant leaf and gooseberry and a refreshing dry finish. Does what it says on the tin, which, at two for £8, adds up to a good festive quaffer. £4.99, Oddbins.
2008 Hilltop Tradition Czerszegi Füszeres
The Importance of Vintage Variation
POSTED ON 01/12/2009Imagine receiving your 200 Wine Gang notes a month with an omission: the vintage of every wine we write about. How would you feel? Offended? Frustrated at not knowing which vintage to buy? Short-changed? You're by now beginning to get some sense of how readers of Matt Skinner's The Juice 2010 might have felt when they discovered that the publishers, Mitchell Beazley, had listed a number of New World wines from the 2009 vintage that were not tasted by the author, despite his admission in a statement issued by the publisher that it was 'imperative that I taste all the wines that I recommend'.
