Wine quiz: Your chance to win James Bond's favourite fizz

(AFP/Getty Images)

Boxing 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.

1. What do Conrad Black and Fred T Franzia, the man behind the California wine known as Two Buck Chuck, have in common?

a) They are both the subject of Hollywood films

b) Neither was granted a presidential pardon for fraud from President Bush

c) They are both members of ZAP, Zinfandel Advocates and Producers

2. Which actor famous for his roles in 'Evita' and 'The Mask of Zorro' bought into Bodega Anta Natura in Spain's Ribera del Duero?

a) Javier Bardem

b) Alfred Molina

c) Antonio Banderas

3. Which wine did Gordon Brown serve to President Obama on April Fool's Day on the US President's visit to Britain for the G20 Summit?

a) Nyetimber English Sparkling Wine

b) 2005 Château Maison Blanche

c) 2006 Wolf Blass President's Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

4. As part of Prince Charles's green drive to reduce his carbon footprint by 12.5 per cent up to 2012, what fuel did His Royal Highness use in his 1970 Aston Martin Volante convertible?

a) English wine

b) Cooking oil

c) Highgrove eau de vie

5. Accused by Liberal Democrat Don Foster of 'living way beyond their means', the Foreign Office disclosed that the government wine cellar held how many bottles of wine, spirits and liqueurs?

a) 3,950

b) 39,500

c) 395,000

6. Forty Hall Organic Farm in the London Borough of Enfield, London's first commercial vineyard since medieval times, was hand-planted with which grape variety?

a) Chardonnay

b) Czerszegi Füszeres

c) Bacchus

7. Which Formula One Champion driver is opening his own winery in England with a view to making biodynamic sparkling wine from the champagne grapes chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier?

a) Lewis Hamilton

b) Jody Scheckter

c) Jenson Button

8. Tenuta Il Palagio is a Tuscan estate producing an organic red wine produced by which notable rock star?

a) Sting

b) Ronnie Wood

c) Paul McCartney

9. At the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this year, which Tory bigwig demonstrated his grasp of popular culture by comparing excessive alcohol consumption by Britain's youth to the TV series 'The Wire'?

a) Eric Pickles

b) David Cameron

c) Chris Grayling

10. Which Hollywood star who stayed at Château Miraval in the South of France enrolled in wine-making classes this summer?

a) Angelina Jolie

b) Hilary Swank

c) Brad Pitt

11. What turned out to be unusual about Australia's planting of Spain's Galician grape Albariño?

a) It was savagnin blanc

b) It was sauvignon blanc

c) It was not vitis vinifera but vitis labrusca

12. Pouring his wine, described as feeling like a family get-together, with 'nice burning flames, noise of crackling logs', which celebrated Bordeaux château owner takes a starring role in 'Drops of the Gods', the latest issue of Japan's influential manga series?

a) Jean-Michel Cazes of Château Lynch Bages

b) Christian Moueix of Château Pétrus

c) Baroness Philippine de Rothschild of Château Mouton Rothschild

13. Whose hand-written wine cellar inventory detailing a list of 13,286 bottles including Châteaux Latour, Lafite, Margaux and Haut-Brion went on display in Paris this year?

a) Catherine the Great

b) The Empress Joséphine

c) Marie-Antoinette

14. Which newspaper released a wine this year called Vin du Soleil, a blend of vermentino and viognier, selling at Asda for £4.98?

a) The Sun

b) The Financial Times

c) The Independent

15. Which major UK supermarket refused to sell wine to a customer, despite her repeated protests that the wine was for her and her husband, because she was accompanied on her shopping trip by two teenage family members?

a) Asda

b) Morrisons

c) Marks & Spencer

16. Come Fly With Me is the name of a limited-edition, 500-case Bordeaux-style blend of a 2007 vintage Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon released by which company?

a) Jimmy Van Heusen

b) Pinky and Perky

c) Sinatra Family Estates

17. September this year was declared California Wine Month by which wine-friendly star?

a) Jack Nicholson

b) Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

c) Hilary Swank

18. Jay-Z's favourite Champagne recently launched which new cuvée selling at £400 a bottle. Which was it?

a) Armand de Brignac Blanc de Blancs Champagne

b) 1996 Krug Clos d'Ambonnay

c) 2000 Roederer Cristal Rosé

19. Which American state banned the sale of a wine featuring a nude nymph on the label of Cycles Gladiator, deeming it 'pornographic'?

a) Utah

b) Texas

c) Alabama

20. Who created the 'Brangelina' sculpture, which is embedded with shards from wine glasses that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie allegedly drank from while celebrating their anniversary?

a) Anish Kapoor

b) Tracey Emin

c) Daniel Edwards

How to enter Send answers on a postcard to: Anthony Rose, The Independent Wine Quiz, The Independent, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF, or e-mail your answers to winequiz@independent.co.uk. The first correct winner will be picked at random from a hat. Closing date for entries is Friday 8 January and we will publish the answers and the winners' names on Saturday 30 January. Normal Independent competition rules apply. The editor's decision is final.