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I might open this fizz to start off Christmas…
The limited availability tempted me to purchase in the end.
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Absolutely - it’s a very important topic.
The month of December is the month of wine, and Christmas Eve through to Boxing Day takes a lot of research and consideration. The rest of December is pretty much about quaffing some pleasurable wines whilst watching the endless loop of 70’s and 80’s Xmas music videos on pretty much any music channel you choose.
Let me share my itinerary for the festive period, I haven’t chosen my wines yet but the template looks something like this - stating with Xmas Eve.:
My neighbours come over and we indulge in some quality Tv Entertainment:
- Christmas with Frank and Bing
- At Home for Christmas - Michael Buble
- Die Hard 1 (obviously)
The food is pretty much any xmas nibble food that takes up to 15 mins in the oven. The wine is much new world, more often an Oz Shiraz and a Cali Cab Sav, with some mulled wine and a cheeky G&T somewhere inbetween.
Then it’s the big day itself. 3 bottles on the table, 1 matured drinking now red Bordeaux and one slightly youthful white Burgundy for mains, and a Sauternes for the pudding. Pre dinner is enjoying some nice fizz with simple finger food, again most likely listening to a more focused Xmas classics playlist from Spotify. I eat dinner and analyse the wine wishing it could be Xmas everyday 
, and then move onto the couch where the anaesthetic qualities of dinner kick in for a couple of hours. Later the port and cheese board make a showing where I watch the the ToTP Xmas show openly admitting I don’t know any of the songs of the year, followed by a host of Xmas specials on U.K. Gold.
Boxing Day starts fuzzy, and often with a strong coffee to kick me into life. Then when I start organising the Xmas day left overs and decant a Burgundy Pinot for lunch. The evening consists on another simple quaffing wine whilst I restart my Xmas count down clock and start counting from 364 days until 
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I think it’s hard to top that 
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I’m overwhelmed by the number of suggestions for Christmas wines, but there is not enough time to try them all. Perhaps the Wine Society should produce a Community Christmas Taster case - but give us time to enjoy them all before needing to place our Christmas order. My own suggestions for inclusion would be The Society’s Champagne Brut and Greywacke (perfect for smoked salmon).
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Surely you have to do the count down to new year before starting the next Xmas count down?
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I really do try to, but mentally I struggle to see beyond what is the ultimate Christmas movie - Die Hard. After I’ve watched that, I make a frantic stock take of my wines to decide what will pair well with wii Dance fun on NYE, and something more sophisticated for NYD!
When all this has finished , I will turn my attention to what BBQ wines I want try… 
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This is what Christmas tastes like:
Wiston Estate 2010 Blanc de Blancs
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Short answer. No.
Christmas cards are in the shops already and Xmas is 3 months away.
If you’e buying wines now, you’ve left it too late…
Nearer the time I’ll be checking Cellartracker to see what delights I have in my cellar for a special occasion.
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I start buying for Christmas round about August/September as it can be quite expensive and I like to budget a little over the year. I’ve got the Society’s Exhibition Pauillac 2010 in my winerack for Christmas Day, and I’ll probably get a Riesling in October as well.
On a side note, has anyone tried this Pauillac yet, and what are your opinions on it?
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@leanderle I bought two bottles of the 2012 and drank one last year (the other is still laid down for another year or two) which, despite being probably rather young, was very good indeed. 2010 was a much better vintage for Bordeaux so I can only be envious of you! 
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@peterm … If you’re buying wines now, you’ve left it too late…
Not quite sure what you mean? If you want to lay them down?
Too late now to lay them down for 2018 Christmas
My Christmas order is 90% complete.
Back in around 2008 but I am fuzzy about the actual year, I left my order to virtually the last minute, business was my excuse.
Maybe 14 days off the last delivery day, and then severe weather hit the UK and the “FUN” started.
Snow and ice had brought UK traffic to a frozen halt!
There were lorries abandoned up and down the “A” roads and Motorways of the UK full of our wine.
For the Society, hell had just been delivered just before Christmas.
My order of maybe 36 bottles I think ended up in some snowdrift on the A1, but the Society did the order again and I received it with a few days to spare.
The original 36 bottles were then delivered around the 7th January and then sent back to Stevenage, some days later. For those in the Logistics Dept. of the Society, this was the nightmare scenario; but they got through it with enormous credit. I can imagine the many extra hours of overtime being booked by all, in order to do as much as they could for us, the members. And after Christmas attempting to retrieve cases from lorries and members who had twice their requirements. The cost of the bad weather, the extra deliveries and no doubt wine that had gone astray must have been prodigious, but at least in my case - a lesson learned.
Since then my Christmas order is planned with military precision for delivery way before the event. Once bitten…!?! lol
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I think I might have just found my Christmas red…
… bit young maybe?
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Not sure yet what we’ll have on the day itself, but this one will definitely feature at some point during the festivities:
Last year we had a wines from Toro and Calatayud in honour of our guests from Spain (neither of whom is Spanish, incidentally). I’m thinking a Priorat for this year. Or maybe one of Dirk Niepoort 's gorgeous reds - 2011 Charme, perhaps?
https://www.vivino.com/niepoort-vinhos-sa-douro-charme-tinto/w/1216909?year=2011
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Currently thinking of taking delivery of a case of this from storage in the next couple of months for the festive period:
I’m wondering whether I should finally pop my Hermitage cherry this Christmas - if it doesn’t sell out before my next order…!
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That’s actually not a bad price as Hermitage goes. The Society ones is the same price but 2014 so much younger. But… I don’t think I’m quite ready for my first yet!
I cannot really comment (yet I will) as my Hermitage experience is limited in both ways (vertical and horizontal)… but a few facts.
(a) This Cuvee is most likely from the Les Grandes Vignes lieu dit with granitic soil, same as the coveted Bessards and as such would be a big wine, one that is not very approachable in its youth (arguably not in its youth any more)…
(b) Drinkrhone is not very complimentary, but tasted in youth…
© Marcel seems to approve in the tasting notes, it may have come around since JLL tasted.
(d) It is as cheap as Hermitage gets.
…one may want to save their cherry for something more remarkable 
or the Exhibition wine for the same price
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