£20-50 per bottle

Pol Roger is a Champagne house with a huge following, thanks to its much loved Brut non-vintage. This cuvée, Pure, is only made in tiny quantities, and is a relatively recent addition to the portfolio, being released for the first time in 2018. It is the house's only zero dosage wine. Chalky, lean and racy, it's the gin and tonic of the range: a great aperitif for livening up the palate.

The second wine from Spottswoode Estate in 2020 has a lot of the same richness and fragrance of their estate wine. There's plenty of savoury quality on the palate, with rose petals and aromatic, musky spice. Fresh with more red fruit and blueberry than the estate wine, it's a brilliant way to experience this celebrated estate at a more accessible price, with earlier drinking potential.

Intensely perfumed with pure aromas of raspberry, black cherry and red cherry. Light mineral hints of reduction on the nose, and a firm structure at this young age. Incredible concentration and intensity for its modest 11% alcohol.

Superb old vine Grenache and surely one of the wines of the vintage. Traditionally made, raised in large oak foudres, this wine has layer upon layer of fresh and dried fruit interlaced with savoury elements such as Ibérico ham and white pepper. Very long and complex.

Iron Heart is a north-facing block, and the result is a meaty, spicy, iron-rich Shiraz. There's lot of black olive flavour, and initially on the nose, lots of heady, rose petal perfume. Elegant and complex in style.

Just 5.9ha in size, Croix de Labrie is a real insider's tip. It's plush, opulent, and powerful. But in 2020 it also has impressive freshness - and a slew of high scores.

Château Quintus has been owned by Clarence Dillon since 2011: it takes its name from the Franco-Roman tradition of always calling a fifth son Quintus. The top wine, gets better every year, and is showing more and more of the breeding that makes the owners’ Pessac wines so highly prized.

From the same vineyard on the far west coast of the cape as Eben Sadie’s Skerpioen. This Palomino is savoury, fresh, and beautifully balanced. It’s a curious, long-lived white that’s seriously impressive.

The warm and low-yielding 2020 vintage has delivered an intense and tightly woven iteration of Tom Cullity, named after Vasse Felix’s pioneering founder. Dried sage and blackberry supported by layers of cracked pepper and hot gravel.

This is the top wine from the historic Wirra Wirra winery, one of the pioneers in McLaren Vale. Chook Block is from a single biodynamically farmed vineyard plot and is only released in the top vintages. There's lots of complex, ripe fruit here with red and black cherry, raspberry, cassis and mulberry, covered in dark chocolate and spice. There's more leathery notes as the palate continues, and iron-filing-like mineral notes. There's plenty of oak character and bold structure around the core of dense fruit. Long and concentrated on the finish.

52% Shiraz, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Cabernet Franc and 11% Merlot sourced from vineyards across the Eden and Barossa Valleys. The vines are anything from 50 years of age plus, and the result is a rich, concentrated wine that really punches above its weight. Ripe, silky, fine-grained, with explosive violet and cracked black pepper on the nose.

The grapes are sourced from a mix of vineyards in several communes in Barolo that provide layers of complexity in the wine. Expect red cherries, blood orange and wild strawberry notes combined with liquorice and black tea aromas. The tannins are well-integrated and provide great structure to the wine's silky core.