2008 Chablis, 1er Cru Mont de Milieu, Domaine Billaud-Simon, Burgundy, France (£16.99, in 400 Co-op stores nationwide). Cue the trumpeters, this is the first wine that I have featured, in my 314 weeks writing this column, from the Co-op. With a good team of buyers there are always a few Co-op wines that sneak into my Weekend Magazine column (in the Daily Mail), but I wouldn’t have thought that they would ever grab a parcel of wine that would suit the finely-tuned MoneyWeek palate. Anyway, this devastatingly beautiful Chablis, from one of my absolutely favourites estates, is one of the most insane give-aways of the year. Priced at a fiver less than anywhere else and coming from the underrated 2008 vintage, with its keen acidity and heavenly, floral fruit, this is a wondrously cultured wine with immense class. At its peak, this radiant creature shows the typical Chablis-esque drama-offset-with-fragility character that I adore in the top wines from this region. Believe it or not there is another white Burgundy at Co-op which you should grab while you are loading up your boot with my lovely Chablis. 2010 St.-Aubin, Le Champ Tirant, Domaine Gérard Thomas (£13.99) is a ripe, full, swash-buckling Chardonnay from the heart of the Côte d’Or. You wait for six years and two great wines come along at once – who’d ‘a’ thought it?
