This juicy, full-of-fruit red sums up the best of Aussie wine – gorgeous ripe flavour, good intensity and freshness. Way & Cat is short for ‘wayfaring catador’, catador being Spanish for taster.

So the name is a tribute to how the team source their fruit – they head out into the vineyards to taste the grapes of their grower friends. When they find the selections they like, they vinify each parcel separately, then blend the results into fruit first expressions of the varieties they chose. That blend changes vintage by vintage, depending on what performs well that year. It's top for versatility too – great as a glass on its own, tasty with roasted vegetable quiche, sausage and mash. And just the ticket at a barbecue.

Château de Birot is an elegant, 17th-century property with vineyards perched on a high plateau looking down on the Garonne river and across to famous Sauternes. Until a few years ago, it belonged to the renowned Castéja family. They sold it and the new owners have been working hard, updating the estate. In the cellar, they discovered a forgotten batch of château wine from 2007.

Despite its 17 years’ age, it’s still tasting delicious, complex and long. It’s Merlot dominated from estate vineyards in the superior Premières Côtes, with a little of both Cabernets. After 17 years of maturing in the cellars, it has developed some sediment in bottle. A good sign. Stand the bottle upright for a few hours and carefully decant just before serving.

Finding a parcel of 2010 claret nine years after this 5-Star vintage was a coup for our Buyer Jean-Marc Sauboua. Critic Michael Schuster described the wines of 2010 on release as “massively elegant, fresher, firmer, more tannic”, Suckling praised them for being “very precise, focused and fresh to taste”, “dangerously good” said Jancis Robinson MW.

Médoc wines that year proved particularly good value too. The 40 hectare estate Château Carcanieux has very gravelly soils, hence its original name Carcanieux Les Graves. This encourages superb concentration and ripeness in the wines. Cabernet with Merlot, and aged in barrel, this silky claret has a fine balance of fruit and maturity, with spice from the oak. Decant and serve with steak au poivre.

Château Peybourdieu is exactly the type of small, under the radar property we love to champion. It also illustrates Robert Parker’s advice not to “overlook the so-called petits vins of Bordeaux – they frequently compete with wines selling for two or three times the price”. Winemaker Denis Cayé is the third generation of his family at the property and his years of experience are evident in this fine 2021 vintage. The estate lies just north of the Haut-Médoc, between the Atlantic and Gironde estuary, protected from strong winds by forest.

A classic Médoc blend of Cabernet and Merlot, it delivers blackcurrant, earthy and oaky hints with a liquorice and cigar box character. Open a few hours early and decant. It's excellent with roast meats.

Rated third among the top 10 wineries of Chile and Argentina by The Wine Report, Zuccardi are hugely impressive. Several years ago, their vineyard manager stumbled upon a very old vineyard in Mendoza. The owner, smoking a pipe under a tree, described his small, nuggety grapes as Cachibaché, meaning they were of little value to him (barely bringing in a profit) but potentially of great interest to someone else.

This was because old, low-yielding vines can produce very intense, complex, deeply coloured wines, albeit in tiny quantities. So Zuccardi winemaker Rubén Ruffo got to work. His Cachibaché 2021 is a blend of Shiraz and Malbec, all from this ancient vineyard. Dark fruit and spice, it's superb with lamb shanks and hearty pasta dishes.