Six of the best Christmas wines to buy this festive season

(Image credit: Senko Nelly / Getty Images)

published 5 December 2025

2024 La Cabane Reserve, Grenache/ Syrah, Pays d’Oc, France

This was the wine that set the theme for this year’s Christmas collection. I tasted it with James Tanner himself at a recent tasting and stopped in my tracks when the summer pudding fragrance and silky-smooth red fruit flavours washed over my palate. I went straight back for another sip and it was even more delicious. Every year, I dream of finding the perfect party red, and I must admit some years I struggle.

But this perfectly poised, juicy and rewarding wine made from the time-honoured, southern Rhône recipe of grenache and syrah is the only wine in town for me! I hope Tanners has a mountain of stock, because they will need it.

Where to buy: £10.90, tanners-wines.co.uk

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2024 Argiles Blanc, Domaine Saint Gayan, IGP Méditerranée, France

Finding La Cabane spurred me on to pair it with a worthy white partner – a wine that could perform at the most exultant level of entertaining for all palates and as wide a range of cuisines as possible. This year’s challenge was far from straightforward. There are thousands of inexpensive, anonymous, rudderless whites on the shelves, lacking identity, let alone a sense of place.

MoneyWeek’s wine lovers deserve wines that hold their attention for the whole bottle, not just the first sip, and this year’s champion hails from a spectacular winery in the southern Rhône that makes far more red than white wine! Made from piquepoul blanc, bourboulenc and grenache blanc, the perfume is haunting, the palate blessed with wonderful orchard fruit notes, and the finish is vigorous and thirst-quenching. It is a rare superstar at this diminutive price!

Where to buy: £10.90, tanners-wines.co.uk

2024 Te Kairanga, Pinot Noir, Martinborough, New Zealand

I remember visiting this winery 20 years ago, noting it was one of the Martinborough pioneers back in the 1980s. The wines have always been Burgundy-leaning, with open-armed red fruit notes, even tannins and a relaxed air. While they kept their heads below the bombastic parapets occupied by noisier wineries, there was always something honest, heart-warming and reliable about Te Kairanga’s pinots.

So, when I stumbled across this wine at a recent Majestic tasting, it was like seeing an old pal. But the perfume was more sonorous and enchanting, and the flavours in this young wine are a little more penetrative, arresting and lip-smacking than at the turn of the century. It appears Te Kairanga has been on a mission to augment its offering for a global audience subtly, and the results are spectacular. I cannot recommend this wine enough!

Where to buy: £18, reduced to £16 in a Mix Six, majestic.co.uk

2023 Montagny, 1er Cru, Jean-Marc Boillot, Burgundy, France

I spent a couple of gorgeous days in Burgundy recently. The sun was shining and the vine leaves were turning colour to the perfect shade that earned these hills the name Côte d’Or. I made eight carefully selected stops, with my favourite Domaines, and one was with the wonderful Lydie Alzingre at J. M. Boillot.

While my mission was to get a handle on the soon-to-be-released 2024s (more of that in the New Year), I made a beeline for this stunning wine during one of the marathon dinners. If you are looking for a grand chardonnay from a gold-star estate that goes with all Christmas dishes while impressing newcomers and aficionados alike, I cannot think of a finer wine. It is bold, lusty, refreshing, effortlessly classy, and at 30 quid, it obliterates legions of Burgundies at twice the price. Get in quick!

Where to buy: £34.95, reduced to £30.95 each by the case, leaandsandeman.co.uk

2023 Soul Growers, Slow Grown Shiraz, Barossa Valley, South Australia

If you dodge and weave between the acknowledged, starry, world-conquering Barossa brands in search of hidden gems, it is remarkable just how many wines one finds of exquisite quality and incredible value for money. I launched my 100 Best Australian Wines 2026 list a few days ago, and the full report is imminent.

Here is a preview and a wine that will astound you with its spectacular detail, succulence and elegance. Once you have eviscerated your turkey and tossed away your chef’s apron, reaching for a regal, mature, hard cheese, this beautiful wine will reveal yet more chambers of secrets among its black fruit, spice and earth tones.

Soul Growers is an excellent name for a wine with this generosity and universal appeal.

Where to buy: £39, woodwinters.com

NV Noble Reserve Trockenbeerenauslese, Weingut Kracher, Burgenland, Austria

I recently attended the annual “Beyond Bordeaux” tasting showcasing the wines sold on La Place de Bordeaux, which come from anywhere other than the immediate environs. Kracher showed a 2022 TBA that blew my mind. This ridiculously hedonistic sweetie costs around £150. So when I approached this featured dinky half bottle and bathed my palate in its magical, all-enveloping flavours, I prepared for an equally punitive price tag. After all, it was only a half-step behind the 2022, to which I awarded a score of 19.5/20.

So, imagine my surprise when I learned this “10-vintage-blend” of welschriesling, chardonnay and traminer, with its kaleidoscopic flavours, weighs in at a mere fraction of the price! This is the perfect Christmas Kracher.

Where to buy: £23.75, half bottle, corneyandbarrow.com

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.