Need fine red wine recommendations please!!

[Renovatinghouse]

Hello! I don't like wine very much but my husband does and I would like to buy him something special for Christmas but have no idea what to get.

Have looked online but there is so much variety that I do not know where to start. He prefers red wine and drinks mostly French. Would like to buy 6 very special bottles or 12 good ones, and the total budget would be max 300 pounds. It does not have to be French though, maybe Italian?

Any advice would be highly appreciated!! : )

Thanks!!

Not the answer to your question but have you thought of paying for him to do a wine tasting/making course?

I work for a wine merchants (clue is in my name) so I may be a bit biased, on the other hand I have tried A LOT of wines over the years so can personally recommend plenty! In general 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2010 were good in France, particularly Bordeaux, so worth looking out for. In Italy, Barolo and Brunello are good, as is Amarone if he likes very full bodied wines. If you want specific wines I can put together a few ideas for you?

Thank you very much! The wine tasting is a good idea and will look into that as well.

Missmajestic, thank you that is very helpful. If it not too much trouble, I'd love to get your list as I honestly do not know anything about it. In general, I tend to choose the wine based on the labels that look nicer to me and trust that the expensive ones must be good, though I guess that is not always the case!

Many thanks!

Here's a few names to go at, all priced around £25-30 and should be relatively easy to get hold of. Hope this helps!
France: Segla, Château Batailly, Ch Leoville Barton, Ch la Croix de Gay, Ch Chauvin
Italy: Guildalberto Tenuta San Guido, Amarone Classico Masi, Promis Gaja, Brunello di Montalcino Brunelli and Barolo Natale Verga.

This is really useful, thanks a lot!! Will start looking for them now : )

My all time favourite wine is Planeta Burdese from Sicily. Hard to track down but worth it.

Thanks, will take a look to see if I'm lucky : )

I found the Planeta on Amazon but the shipping is vey expensive... will keep looking