Once again I ask to kindly be excused if I repeat myself, as the last time I wrote about Virginie de Valandraud 1999, a wine from St Emilion, was on November 29, 2013.

I mentioned my recent birthday dinner party where friends brought a selection of their finest bottles to enjoy along with those that we had in our home.

In the end, it really came down to a toss-up between the St Emilion in a magnum and a three-litre (double magnum) of Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 1997 from Napa Valley.

I was reminded of this a few days ago as a friend in Bermuda who owns a vineyard in Argentina that we represent, asked if we still had any of the Virgine de Valandraud as he had just opened a magnum and was impressed enough to require another.

We actually have a few bottles and magnums in stock as I fell in love with it years ago and bought more than I prudently should have (about 25 per cent of their total production of that year, I believe).

When Jean-Luc Thunevin and his wife Murielle moved from Algeria in the 1980s they literally made their first wine in their garage on a back street of the historic town of St Emilion. They were the first “garigiste” winemakers and soon produced a wine (Valandraud) that was compared with the Great First Growths.

Virginie is the name of their daughter and this wine, at this stage in its life, is just magic and represents all that this wonderful trade means to me. Bottles are $92.15 and magnums $186.80. You would have the luckiest turkey if it was paired with such a wine — and how about your Christmas guests!

But, the Beringer 1997 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon in a beautifully etched large Jeroboam is right in the contest here for top spot and this is what Robert Parker wrote about it four years ago: “A great vintage in both quality and quantity. The fruit came from five separate vineyards — Bancroft Ranch and Tre Colline on Howell Mountain, Chabot and St Helena Home Vineyard and, for the first time, a small portion came from the Marston Ranch on Spring Mountain. Still densely purple-coloured, the 1997 exhibits wonderful plum, blackberry, cedar, spice and subtle smoky oak notes, a gorgeously opulent texture, full-bodied power and hints of roasted espresso and white chocolate in the flavours. This beauty can be drunk now and over the next 12 to 15-plus years. One of the all-time great Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserves.” $996.85.

We presently stock ten vintages of this wine, mostly in regular 75cl bottle size, and a wonderful way to understand how wine ages would be to buy a few and enjoy a vertical tasting with friends.

Just a quick comment on corks over ten years of age. They can be soft or crumbly and easily break, so insert the corkscrew in as far as possible and then pull slowly up to remove it a quarter inch or so. Wait a minute to let tension ease, and then very slowly extract it. For myself, I do not use a corkscrew, but rely on an “ah-so” cork remover for older wines.

For my Christmas white, here are comments from the winemaker at Drouhin in Burgundy: “An outstanding wine. Pale yellow colour. Complex floral nose of white lilac and white rose.

Once open, fruity aromas come to the fore, evolving towards grilled hazelnut and almond. When the wine is more mature, the nose is surprisingly strong and 15 minutes of aeration produces wonderful notes of white truffle, citron, honey and nutmeg, elegantly meshed together. Very lively on the palate, its rich texture is in evidence, but also its structure and minerality. It is round, but never heavy. Harmonious fullness in the aftertaste. This wine allies remarkably the complexity and elegance of a Bâtard-Montrachet with the power of a Corton-Charlemagne.”

Top critic Robert Parker wrote a few years ago: “The 2010 Beaune Clos des Mouches, one of the Drouhin’s flagships, is impossibly young. It needs several years, at a minimum, to shed some of its baby fat. Clos des Mouches has a great track record of ageing and, while I rarely take the risk of cellaring white Burgundy these days, if I were to cellar a handful of 2010 whites, Clos des Mouches would be one of my choices. Today, it is the wine’s exceptional textural elegance and precise saline minerality that make the deepest impression.”

Clos des Mouches translates as “walled vineyard of the flies” and before you wonder at such a name, a short explanation is warranted. Many of the great vineyards in Burgundy are protected by walls (clos) as theft of the delicious fruit is always a worry. Today, mouche means fly, but back centuries ago it meant honey bee and there used to be hives on this property. Drouhin farm pinot noir and chardonnay biodynamically on this extraordinary plot, and as much as I would like to mention the glorious red, our allocation for this year was one case of 12 bottles! Somehow we did far better a few years ago when we purchased their 2010 chardonnay. A bottle of Drouhin Clos des Mouches Blanc 2010 can be yours for $97.70. I suspect that if a certain person reads this, I will be “under heavy manners” to have these wines at the ready for our Christmas dinner. I should mention that you can purchase a 75cl bottle of the Beringer Private Reserve 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon for $175.10 if your guest numbers do not require the volume of a double magnum.

•This column is a paid-for advertorial for Burrows Lightbourn Ltd. Michael Robinson is Director of Wine at Burrows Lightbourn Ltd. He can be contacted at mrobinson@bll.bm or 295-0176. Burrows Lightbourn has stores in Hamilton (Front Street East, 295-1554), Paget (Harbour Road, 236-0355) and St George’s (York Street, 297-0409). A selection of their drinks is available at www.wineonline.bm.