They are, are you? Independent, that is. We tend to concentrate on wines in the high street during the year for the simple reason that we want to make our choices as widely available to as many of you as possible. But the domination of the high street can be too much of a good thing, on occasions leaving you out in the cold when looking for wines of greater interest and personality. While their shops may be local, most good independents that carry the flag for variety, quality and even value, now have efficient nationwide mail order services with a website as their shop window.

Give with one hand and take with the other was the dubious Christmas gift to wine drinkers that earned the Chancellor the title of Santa Claws recently. Thanks Mr. D for putting almost 30 pence duty on a bottle of wine this year, but it’s some small consolation that the new VAT saving outweighs the latest 13 pence hike if you trade up to over £6.07.

10 Budget Wines Under £6

White

2008 Nederburg Chardonnay Viognier, Paarl, £4.99, reduced to £3.99, until 6 January, Waitrose.

From Nederberg, as much an institution as a Cape winery, this is a modern South African blend made mainly from chardonnay, with just a touch of viognier to add peachy notes to the juicy fresh flavours,, all neatly rounded out with a touch of light toasty oak. With so much going on, you wonder how they can cram so much in at its bargain festive period price.

2007 Enclos des Pins Chardonnay, Foncalieu, £5.99, Marks & Spencer.

Buyer beware are this month’s watchwords if you’re out hunting and gathering wine bargains for Christmas. They’re not about to fall off the Christmas tree any time soon and it won’t be enough to know the price if you don’t know the value. Evidence of the cynicism with which some retailers are approaching the credit crunch was highlighted by thewinegang.com’s recent exposure in Off-Licence News of a raft of depressing new so-called ‘value’ wines: Tesco’s Spanish tetrapaks, Sainsbury’s Basics and Asda’s Smartprice wines. We gave them a firm thumbs down, but is it all that surprising?

In the face of falling champagne sales, the online wine merchant From Vineyards Direct displayed a mischievously British sense of humour, delivering a sample with a copy of Charles Dickens' Hard Times. Still, according to something called the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, £24m worth of alcohol is forecast to be bought online in the UK during the first week of December.

Proof that New Zealand is not just a one-trick sauvignon blanc pony comes in the form of the most delightful liquid summer pudding of fruits imaginable known as pinot noir. Its quality trajectory has been so rapid over barely more than a decade that it’s not fanciful to imagine that within a generation, we’ll be talking about Kiwi pinot in the same breath as we now doff a reverential cap to Burgundy’s fabled red wine villages of Nuits Saint Georges, Gevrey Chambertin and Clos Vougeot.

Under £10 case

1. The Fizz is the Biz

2004 Bulle de Blanquette 1531, £9.99, Tesco.

From the Sieur d’Arques Co-op in Limoux near Carcassonne, this typical southern French blend of the mauzac grape with a dollops of chardonnay and chenin blanc for good measure, is richly flavoured, a creamy mousse of bubbles adding luxurious texture to a crisp dry finish. A handy alternative to champagne.

2. Aroma Therapy

2007 Castillo de Molina Reserva Sauvignon Blanc, Elqui Valley, £7.49, buy 2 = £5.99, Majestic Wine Warehouses.

At the dawn of the swinging sixties, Ahmed Pochee, an anti-establishment maverick who delighted in getting up the stuffy nose of the traditional wine trade, set up a new kind of off-licence. It was called Oddbins and it suffered from neither the dead hand of the breweries nor the pin-striped pomposity of the St. James’s wine merchants of the era. With his extensive network of contacts, reputable and less so, only Pochee could manage to sell top Bordeaux châteaux like Beychevelle and Cos d’Estournel for 19 shillings and eleven pence (99p) a bottle.

One pleasant surprise in the autumn round of tastings is a bonus, but two in a week and it was starting to feel as if Christmas had come early. So it was with the tastings put on by the Wine Society, the mail-order club, and Virgin Wines, one of Europe's bigger online wine retailers. If I was a member of only one wine club, it would be the Wine Society, a non-profit-making co-operative founded back in 1874. And not just for the tastings, en primeur offers, temperature-controlled warehouse storage or even the Postman Pat-style delivery van.

Not just any indigestion, but a Marks & Spencer’s indigestion. Brought on by the bitter pill of dire sales figures for the last quarter, it was tough news to have to swallow for the company that scooped last month’s supermarket of the year award in the UK’s two major wine competitions. Jittery about money in the run-up to Christmas, and with food bills up 15 per cent this year, credit crunch shoppers are increasingly looking to own-brand lines and discount stores for non-essential items. Let them drink wine, as Marie-Antoinette might have said.