The Wine Society’s evolving palate: Discover its must-try wines for this season

A tribute to Barossa’s remarkable old-vine heritage, this remarkable Grenache comes from a vineyard planted in 1850. It’s a model of purring, beautifully balanced concentration, with fragrant bramble-bush fruit, red liquorice and rosemary, a sprinkle of fine tannin and a long cherry-and-gently peppered finish. Outstanding.

We're not 100% sure the cartoonish labels match the sheer quality and evocative beauty of the wine here, but maybe we're getting old, and really, what a wine this is. A sinewy but silky tannins and supple Syrah which combines the prettiness of violets, thyme and lavender with hibiscus and raspberry and, yes, a coastal saline quality.

A new vintage rather than a 'new' wine per se, but this exquisite Moulin-à-Vent was by some distance the most impressive of the three Beaujolais on show at the tasting, a wine of seamless, silk-sheen softness and slinkiness with high-definition perfectly ripe strawberry and raspberry fruit.

Carignan leads the way in this multi-varietal Santa Barbara County blend from an exciting, low-intervention small producer. Very much in a light and juicy mode, it combines refreshment with real fruit-led complexity with a blood-orange citrusy quality and a just-picked, just-ripe blackberry crunch.

Part of The Wine Society’s Christmas Fine Wine Collection, this is a very pure, seamless, harmonious style of Malbec, with no rough edges, aged in a mix of mostly neutral oak and concrete. Delightful black cherry, blueberry and violets and suave tannins.

It's a wee bit expensive perhaps, but this Turkish red, made from old (57 years) vines of the rare Erciş Karası variety grown at a lofty 1770m above sea level will reward the curious buyer with its deeply expressive lightness of touch, its wild berries and pomegranate and its skipping, dancing, immensely refreshing energy.

The wines of the late Jacky Blot are now made by his no-less talented son, Jean-Phillippe, and they remain among the best in the Loire. This classic Bourgueil Cabernet Franc, with its chalky feel, fresh cassis, graphite and subtle spice, is as bright, graceful and energetic as you could ask for.

Made by a retired ballerina (Cécile Dusserre) with her daughter Amélie, this unoaked Grenache-led blend does have a certain balletic elegance in the context of powerful Vacqueyras, but that elegance is built on the robust strength and muscular power of the fruit, which is layered, dark, earthy and succulent. Very good value.

Another funky choice that explores the increasingly fluid boundaries between wine colours, this near-50-50 co-fermented blend of Listán Negro and Blanco from old vines on southern Tenerife is also terrific value. Intensely gluggable with its sour cherry-berry but with an attractive wildness to the acidity and grippy tannin, too.

A super-reliable, good quality name in the Haut-Médoc category. Ground coffee flavours run right through the extremely elegant black fruits, liquorice and charcoal, with a lovely seam of freshness. The tannins are just a touch too solid, but it yet again shows the brilliant quality in this vintage at different levels. The blend is 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc.

A collaboration between The Wine Society and rising-star winemaker Sam Lambson, this is largely Sam’s own 2023 Syrah fleshed out with Viognier from Miles Mossop and Mourvède from De Morgenzon. It makes for a super-friendly lighter take on Syrah, a kind of Côtes-du-Cape, with a softly spiced raspberry drinkability.

Superstar Swartland winemaker Adi Badenhorst makes some of South Africa’s finest new-wave wines. But he also has a neat line in accessible, and accessibly priced everyday bottlings, with this Cabernet-led blend offering all the exuberant spiciness brambly juiciness you need for midweek bangers and mash.