Wine: Wines of the month

Shopping around in the run-up to Christmas

The knives are out as the booze industry deploys multibuys, linked sales, gift packs, free tastings and promotions in the lucrative run-up to Christmas. Fair enough if the value's there, but watch out for price cuts masquerading as bargains. pounds 3.29 slashed to pounds 1.99 sounds unmissable, but even at pounds 1.99, the wishy-washy 1996 Chilean white and red in Somerfield's Price Check promotion this month don't do Somerfield customers, or Chile for that matter, any favours. You're far better off with the crisply aromatic, tangy, sauvignon-like 1996 Santa Carolina White, pounds 2.99 at Oddbins and Booths.

The Co-op, believe it or not, shifts more booze than even Somerfield, Marks & Spencer or Waitrose. Not that astonishing perhaps given its 2,500 off-licenses nationwide, ranging from Postman Pat-style village convenience shop to modern superstore such as the new flagship Co-op in Hexham. Because of the amorphous nature of the beast, though, you won't find all wines in all Co-ops. Leo's and Co-operative Pioneer, for instance, are part of the rival CRS group.

It's worth combing Co-op superstores, though, for the 1995 Campos dos Frades Chardonnay, reduced from pounds 3.99 to pounds 3.49 until 4 January, a delicately oaked, citrus-fruity Ribatejo dry white from the well-travelled Australian winemaker, Peter Bright. In selected Co-op supermarkets as well as superstores, the 1991 Baron de Ley Rioja Reserva, down pounds 1.50 from pounds 6.99 to pounds 5.49, is a ripe, red fruits-flavoured blend of tempranillo and cabernet sauvignon spiced with a stylish dusting of French oak.

Thresher Wine Shops and its Wine Rack and Bottoms Up chains keep the Spanish flag flying, with handy reductions until Wednesday on a number of riojas, including the excellent, modern Conde de Valdemar range. Half a dozen bottles of the youthful, all-tempranillo 1995 Valdemar Tinto, unoaked for maximum raspberryish impact, normally pounds 4.29 a bottle, will cost you pounds 25 at Bottoms Up.

In all three retail chains, the silky, vanilla-laden 1993 Conde de Valdemar Rioja Crianza is reduced by 50p from pounds 5.99 to pounds 5.49, and the gloriously mature, faintly gamey 1991 Conde de Valdemar Rioja Reserva from pounds 7.69 to pounds 6.99.

There's a growing buzz about Fuller's, the Griffin Brewery's high street wine merchant, whose new world wine promotion also runs until next Wednesday. If you're not convinced that Australian riesling packs more flavour than most of the German rieslings under a fiver, try Hardy's aromatic, lemon and lime-fresh 1995 Nottage Hill Riesling, pounds 4.99 (also available at Victoria Wine), or six for the price of five. The Riesling stood bottleneck and shoulders above the other Nottage Hill wines last year, but there's been a quantum leap in the new Hardy's chardy. The 1996 Nottage Hill Chardonnay, normally pounds 4.99, or six for five again at Fuller's, is a delightfully juicy cocktail of peach and tropical fruits with a veneer of smoky oak .

If 1996 has been a success in Australia, an early showing of the 1996 New Zealand sauvignon blancs in London last month indicates a long-waited return to Sancerre-busting form with many 1996s still steely and poised to blossom over the next few months. Cloudy Bay, Palliser Estate and Jackson Estate have emerged as the early star turns, the latter, packed with tropical passion fruit and grapefruit flavours, pounds 8.99 at Oddbins. The more widely available 1996 Montana Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, the benchmark for Kiwi sauvignon, has surpassed itself in this vintage with its hallmark powerful elderflower scents and intense, superripe gooseberry-like flavours. The increase in the pounds 4.99 price, held for six years, to pounds 5.49 is justified, but you can still get it for pounds 4.99 until Wednesday by taking advantage of Fuller's offer, saving pounds 1 when you buy two bottles. A similar deal applies until tomorrow week at Victoria Wine to the pungently grassy 1995 California Sauvignon Blanc, Mohr-Fry Ranch, Lodi, a wine made by Victoria Wine's in-house Master of Wine, Hugh Suter. Buy two bottles, and this well-rounded, gooseberry-like sauvignon with its grapefruity tang, normally pounds 4.49, also has pounds 1 lopped off the asking price.