Wines of the week: 6 fireside bottles

As winter closes in, Terry Kirby picks earthy, powerful and warming reds that are perfect for enjoying around your fire, real or not

So it’s finally getting a bit cold and dark and the festive season is definitely on the horizon. Hey, it’s winter. Now is the time to begin to celebrate the cold months – when we gather around the fires that comfort us against the darkness. Don’t resist the hygge vibe: light a candle, make sure there is warming food on the table, savour the time and the red wines and foods that go with it. And stoke up the fire, if you have one.

So what are our fireside wines? Think big earthy powerful reds that need robust and equally warming foods to match them. The New World take on bordeaux is a great source of such wines, so here are two best kept for special occasions and your finest foods: the Californian Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 (£17.95 Winedirect.co.uk) is a bordeaux-style blend. Small amounts of petit verdot, cabernet franc, merlot and malbec from vineyards scattered around Sonoma and Napa give added complexity: flavours of tar, liquorice, cassis and lashings of forceful black fruit. As well as casseroles this is a good bet for Christmas roasts of beef or venison. As is the equally compelling HJ Fabre Reservado Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 (£15.99 Laithwaites.co.uk) made by a former Bordeaux winemaker in Argentina’s Mendoza region: intense, structured, with savoury notes of coffee and leather. A warming blanket of a wine. Both these wines need decanting early to enjoy them at their best and will get better a day after opening, so think ahead of you are planning a Saturday dinner or Sunday lunch.

In Australia, Barossa shiraz is a byword for rich and spicy wines and the Yalumba Galway Vintage Shiraz (£12.99 Waitrosecellar.com) is excellent value: packed with plummy, concentrated blackberry fruits, pepper and cassis flavours and violet aromas: ideal with a good steak or Boeuf Bourguignon. Turning up the spice several notches, the Swartland Winery Limited Release Carignan 2015 (£10.95 Strictlywine.co.uk; minimum order six bottles) demonstrates the potential of this reliable European varietal: on top of the spice are forceful layers of fruit flavours with mocha and coffee notes, giving a wild, almost untamed, very individual quality to the wine.

Finally, back in Europe, the Emilio Moro Ribera del Duero 2015 (£17.99 Majestic.co.uk ) offers a real flavour of the sun drenched Spanish hillsides: some oak ageing adds vanilla to the blackberry and herbal flavours of the tempranillo grapes: smooth, luscious, structured and with a long finish, its one for a real Spanish casserole like Cocida Madrelino

The French mixed meats equivalent, swapping chickpeas for haricot beans, is the cassoulet, for which you need a real dark, deep red from its home in the south-west of France, such as the Madiran Reserve des Tugeuts 2015 (£6.50 Tesco). Made from the tannat grape, which mainly only thrives there (and in Uruguay) it’s a serious wine and a considerable bargain from the reliable Plaimont Co-operative: robust tannins, tar and bitter chocolate. It’s what winter was made for…