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Wines in the press November 14- 18

The Guardian

Have you got bottles tucked away in a wine rack that have been there for five years or more? Asks Fiona Beckett.

There are bottles that do benefit from a couple of years' storage and they're not always the ones you might think. Beckett likes to hang on to full-bodied Aussie reds and recomemnds Peter Lehmann's BVC Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 (£9.99 if you buy two or more in Majestic) which she says makes hugely enjoyable drinking now, but it will be even smoother and mellower in two years' time. She adds sometimes if you pitch in too early, you're not going to taste the wine at its best. She includes white wines such as Riesling and Semillon. She recently attended a tasting of Australian Semillons that went back 20 years and says they were still amazingly fresh. Beckett suggests ageing a young Hunter Valley Semillon, such as Keith Tulloch Semillon 2011 (£12.39, fintrywines.co.uk) for three or four years, or longer if you have good storage - and you'll be in for a treat, she says.

The Observer

David Williams has listed his top 10 wines for Christmas from £4-£40. His cheapest recommendation is the Aldi Toro Loco Tempranillo, Utiel-Requena, Spain 2011(£3.59, Aldi). He says it is a very "decent buy" as its sweet cherry-berry character and simple juicy freshness make it a very useful standby for unexpected guests - or if your party drinks more than you had bargained for. One of his choices in the over £10 bracket is the Willunga 100 The Olive Branch Cabernet Shiraz, McLaren Vale, Australia 2010 (£11.99, Tesco). Williams says although the classic Australian virtues of rich ripe blackcurrant and blackberry fruit are all here in abundance there's also a real crunch and grip to the tannins, and freshness to leaven the power. In the upper price bracket he has chosen Jorge Moreira Poeira, Douro, Portugal 2008 (£33.15, Berry Bros & Rudd). Williams says in recent years the Douro Valley has become one of Europe's most exciting red wine producers, crafting wines that manage to be at once powerful and elegant. That's certainly the case here, he adds. "There's a deep well of black fruit and tannin, but there's lifted, almost floral aromas, too, in a seriously classy red."

The Daily Telegraph

Once Beaujolais Nouveau had a special meaning with blackboards going up outside wine merchants and village shops around the country trumpeting its arrival, says Victoria Moore. No longer, she adds. "We haven't sold it for at least five years," says Sainsbury's. Nor has Tesco or Adsa. What about Berry Bros & Rudd, the wine merchant in St James's where they are so excited about Beaujolais in general that they showed no fewer than 14 of them from last year's vintage at their recent autumn press tasting?  Moore found out it doesn't "really do nouveau". Even the PR agency representing Inter-Beaujolais represents every wine made in the region - except Nouveau. Moore says sales in this country slipped from 742,000 bottles in 1999 to just 107,000 last year. And visit the south of Beaujolais, where grapes for the Nouveau have traditionally been grown, and you drive past overgrown vineyards, the vines derelict and abandoned. Moore adds, yet despite this massive decline, there is some good Beaujolais news in the north of the region. Here you find the 10 so-called crus: Morgon, Moulin-a-Vent, Fleurie, Brouilly, Côtes de Brouilly, Julienas, Chénas, Chiroubles, Regnie and St Amour, each with its own characteristics, all blessed with the soil and micro-climates to make superior wine - which is exactly what they are doing. Moore says 2009, 2010 and 2011 were all very good vintages and sales of Fleurie in the UK rose by 50% last year. If Moore were drinking Beaujolais today, she'd head for a Julien Sunier Fleurie, 2010 (Berry Bros & Rudd, £19.50)