The Tippler: Party wines, Pisco Sour

For parties, dressing down to suit a budget is all very well. But there are few £2.99 wines that rise above the bog-standard. At £3.99, a new world opens up if you shop around. The grapefruity Chilean white Cono Sur 2001 Sauvignon Blanc is down £1 to £3.48 at Asda until 6 January. Waitrose has two exceptional reductions from 3 December: the aromatic Cape white, 2001 Excelsior Estate Sauvignon Blanc and, from the south of France, an elderfloral white in the 2000 Domaine Caude Val Sauvignon Blanc. Both drop from £4.49 to £3.99.

There's good value, too, in Argentina's perfumed 2001 Caballo de Plata Famatina Valley Torrontes (£3.39, Tesco), with its cream soda flavours, the 2000 Lunaran Sauvignon from Rueda (£3.99, Marks & Spencer), a Spanish white with gooseberry-ripe flavours and zingy acidity. Finally, the 1999 Kendermann Late Harvest, reduced from £5.99 to £3.99 at Wine Rack and Bottoms Up, is 50 centilitres of a guava and peach-like fruitiness and spritz.

Pisco sounds like a good name for a spirits company, but it belongs to the Chilean white spirit named after piscu – "flying bird" in Quechua, the language of the Incas. Pisco (£10.99, Waitrose, 50 cl) is an eau de vie of reservado (40 per cent) quality, distilled from muscat grapes in copper-pot stills in the Andean Elqui Valley. It's best in a Pisco Sour. Take four measures of pisco to one of lemon or lime (or both mixed), ice cubes and sugar to taste, shake, strain and de-stress.