Perhaps I should have waited two more columns, until my 100th for this brilliant publication, to write such a personal piece, but it’s the festive season, and the perfect time to splash out, so here you go. This is the ideal time to let you know what I will be drinking with my best friends and family this Christmas, and, by definition, this means these three wines are the most exciting and delicious I have come across in the last month.
It is not only essential to put one’s best wines possible on the table to share with your loved ones, but also a privilege to tell stories about their heritage, the people behind the labels and the stunningly unique flavours in the glass.
It helps if the wines are memorable, beautifully packaged and genuine, personal favourites. One can only expound on wines that one truly loves, and so this month, my independence and magnanimity are front and centre.
You will be selecting your own wines for your various gatherings, and there are lots of moving parts to consider. This month, I have ignored specific menus or dishes, like a traditional Christmas lunch, roast beef, mince pies, turkey curry or smoked salmon blinis – all dishes we will devour. What counts is simply the flavours you will experience in the glass and the way these wines transport you to a higher plane. Selfish? Perhaps. Indulgent? Certainly. But the bottom line is that what I’m drinking this Christmas is the present I will give myself after a long 12 months working like a berserker. And you should do the very same, too, because you’re worth it. Perhaps you will consider this trio. I hope so. It would be awesome to think there are people out there raising the very same wines to celebrate the end of 2025 and usher in the New Year.
2023 Artefact, A Moment in Wine Bacchus
£28.00
www.artefactwine.com
It’s hard not to be drawn in by the story of three mates from East Devon, Rob Corbett, Luke Harbor and Tommy Gillard, coming together to record the emotions and events of the year in the flavour and aura of a wine.
This lofty ambition might seem somewhat pretentious or, worse, a little kitsch. But when the packaging is this spectacular and the flavour so arresting, it commands complete commitment from the drinker, you are stopped in your tracks.
2023 Artefact is a Bacchus, crushed and destemmed into four 300-litre Tuscan amphorae, where it spent 21 days on skins before 18 months lees ageing. It is uncompromising, unique, toothsome and combative. It is slightly sherried, like an electrifying Manzanilla, except the perfume is that of an elegant, formal English garden, layered with meadow and orchard flourishes.
It is incredibly refreshing and arrestingly dry. It is unlike any apero white wine in the land, and the intricate mosaic label depicts a year of strikes, submarines, and pop stars.
The artwork was inspired by the Byzantine-era mosaic discovered under an olive orchard in the Bureij refugee camp, located in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. It is stunningly beautiful, and I cannot imagine that any one of the limited run of 1200 bottles will find its way to a bottle bank for recycling.
For my part, this vessel should spend its remaining days in my kitchen, alternating between olive oil duties and fresh flowers!
Weyborne, Oriana Golden Spur, West Sussex
£45.00
www.weyborne.com
£222.00 per 6 bottles In Bond
www.farrvintners.com
Named after Tennyson’s The Ballad of Oriana, discovered in a 1905 edition within the Estate’s own library, Weyborne is justifiably proud of this wine, which romantically embodies the spirit of love, loyalty and fate.
In fact, Golden Spur is an early release of a 2022 vintage wine which will see the light of day in the Spring. With very little wine left in the cellar after winning gongs and praise (including from this writer on this page nine months ago) for their previous releases, Weyborne needed to conjure up a wine to keep their fanbase satiated. Golden Spur was born, and it is far more delicious and precocious than anyone could have imagined.
Super dry, shockingly floral, and with gorgeous rosehip moments bounded by a sternly acidic hem that realigns the senses after every sip, this is a handsome sparkler that employs just the right amount of oak to add gravitas without upsetting its equilibrium.
Golden Spur was summoned from its slumber six months earlier than planned and given the challenge of electrifying all-comers’ palates while sticking to the sonorous Oriana script. It should not be this good, this early, but I was utterly mesmerised by this wine, and its legend and performance are both breathtaking.
2023 Whitewolfe, KC4 Chardonnay, Kent
£46.99
www.whitewolfe-estates.co.uk
Regular readers will know that I was so gob-smacked by the inaugural releases from Whitewolfe I devoted an entire double-page spread to the wines in Vineyard Magazine last September.
A year later, would ‘second album syndrome’ affect this Kits Coty Chardonnay specialist? Not on your nelly. This wine is one of the most resonant and magical of 2025, and I wanted to tell as many people as I could in the shortest possible time.
So, I put my money where my mouth is and poured it at a series of festive, corporate events in November for gatherings of elite wine lovers. Here is a story within a story. At a particularly grand dinner, I noticed that two chaps kept fiddling with their phones when I was telling the throng about this stunning wine. It didn’t put me off my stride, but it certainly niggled, so I made a point of walking over between courses to ask if they were enjoying the wines.
I felt like a fool when they told me they loved KC4 so much that they had to secure a few cases while I was talking. They knew that stocks were limited and did not want to miss out. I loved this story so much, I let Claire Whitehead know the next day, and she revealed that a decent order had come out of the blue the night before!
It just goes to show that some wines are so breathtakingly beautiful that people cannot live without them. I feel the same way about KC4 – it is a rare gem, and I will continue to give it as many chances as I can to cast its spell this Christmas.
