Pagan symbols used to celebrate the birth of Christ, augmented by a healthy dose of gluttony, familial get togethers and gift giving. Christmas: a strange holiday indeed. Some raise their hands in Church, others raise their glasses at the table, while some simply raise their middle finger to the whole caboodle. Christmas: a time of drunkenness, praise, and popped shirt buttons. There’s revelry and excess, angels and shepherds, and of course, the fat man in the fur-trimmed getup with a hankering for cookies, milk, and having children on his lap. A weird and wonderful time it is.

It is also the time of year that wine columnists all over the world trot out their terribly banal “Top 10 Wines for Christmas” piece. I hate those. You might as well have a ‘Top 10 Wines for Tuesday Afternoons”, it would be just as useful. The only way a wine becomes Christmassy is if you chuck some on the stove with spices and orange rind. Otherwise the notion of a Christmas wine is patently silly. If one of the wise men dropped off a bottle of something – a gesture I am sure Mary would have appreciated (I’d also want a drink after popping out the son of God next to a donkey) – if it were gold, frankincense and Merlot, then one could understand. If they were the sort of wise men who travelled far, over field and mountain, moor and mountain / getting to yonder bar, then you could imagine there being specific Christmas tipples.

The reason for all these lists is not because Christmas and wine share any real relation to each other, but because it is the time of year when even the most disciplined allow for a bit of indulgence. And sadly for some, wine is an indulgence, rather than a staple.

These lists generally tell you where the bargains are, which wines go with gammon, mince pies, and turkey. Well sod that, there is a lot more to Christmas than food and drink, and I am going to offer you some wines that will help you get through this turbulent time of the year.

One should always raise a glass of very good Champagne  – may I suggest Drappier, or Pol Roger this year – because Christmas is a celebratory time. Despite most having no idea what they are supposed to be celebrating. Peace among men? Pull the other one. As I am not a believer of men in the sky (or peace among men for that matter) – I just drink my bubbles, smile, and try not to get into an argument with my fascist cousin. This is another benefit of having your fridge well stocked with bubbles: a well-timed pop of a cork can quell tense family situations that threaten at this time of year.

This brings me to my next piece of Christmas wine advice: buy a lot of it. Not only does the season of goodwill present more opportunities than most to imbibe, but sometimes this is the only way to deal with the inevitable drunk relatives. You know the ones; they tell you to live all you can, sway a bit, then grasp your shoulder sobbing about how they pissed their lives away. Christmas seems to bring out the melancholy in drunk relatives. Join in is my advice. Gulp that bottle of Merlot down and sob away with pissed Auntie Vivian.

Christmas is not a jolly time for everyone, and it’s not because they are stocking half-empty sorts of folks. Being alone on Christmas is pretty shitty; especially if you buy into the whole goodwill and cheer malarkey. So if your Christmas cards are self-addressed, you know what all your presents are before you open them, and you have decorated your cactus in lieu of a tree, let me recommend the perfect wine. I would suggest a Tawny Port. Sip it and contemplate your loneliness, let the warm rich liquid soothe your frazzled nerves. Focus on the nutty black tea flavours and forget about the noose you made the night before.

I met a winemaker once who told me that Riesling is the perfect wine to sober one up. He was my kind of guy. What he meant, of course, was that even when another drink is not normally considered appropriate – when you are pissed – Riesling will do. So if you have a family that demands presents be opened with the first dawn’s first light, then may I suggest Riesling as an accompaniment. I have had very affordable, delicious, and low alcohol Rieslings from Willie Schafer, Kabinetts that would be perfect for the occasion. Fruity, zippy, some sweetness, utterly delicious. Actually, it’s just the sort of wines to go with opening presents in general.

Shopping is a strenuous activity at the best of times, and at Christmas it can be positively harrowing. To do it properly requires the planning and execution normally reserved for battle hardened generals; done poorly and you end up in the foetal position behind a pot-plant, crying softly as Boney M is piped over the PA system and trolleys scream past filled with cheap nick-nacks and snivelling children. There is a solution friends: a hip-flask filled with decent medium-cream sherry, and take a little nip from it when the queues are outrageous, the tellers rude, and that perfume you promised to buy your beloved is out of stock.

If all of this is alien to you and you are a lover of Christmas; your family are close, the gifts always thoughtful, and the food cooked to perfection, then I would stock up on Burgundy. Pinot Noir reminds me of the perfect Christmas. All silky and smooth, light and easy, but filled with a wonderful seriousness if done correctly. It would pair with your turkey, and maybe even those cursed mince pies. If the fat fool in the red-suit is a wine drinker, I bet you he drinks the good stuff from the Côte de Beaune.

Let me end this mostly frivolous column with some decent advice for wine drinking this festive season. Considering it is the time when presents are given, why not give yourself one,? Buy a really good bottle of wine. Spend that little extra this year. If you are going to be gluttonous, at least do it with a little style. Because, as my main man Tom Robbins says: “The most important thing in life is style. That is the style of one’s existence, the characteristic mode of one’s actions is basically ultimately what matters. For if man defines himself by doing, then style is doubly definitive, because style describes the doing.”