Following on from Mike’s Ode to Sauvignon Blanc, we’re giving the winner of this contest a delicious Taste the Difference experience. One lucky wine lover will receive three Sauvignons from France, Chile and New Zealand to tickle the taste buds and experience the quality and diversity this great grape has to offer.

The lucky winner will also receive our exclusive Essential Wine Tasting Guide along with six ISO tasting glasses and an official Curious Wines corkscrew, so you and a lucky accomplice can taste like pros. (Or use the guide as a coaster and just drink the wine like a prole - that works, too.)

The wines up for tasting are:

• Domaine du Pre Baron Touraine from the Loire in France
• Santa Alicia Reserva Sauvignon Blanc from the Maipo Valley in Chile
• Tussock Sauvignon Blanc from Nelson in New Zealand

How to Enter: All you have to do to enter the contest is join (or already be a member of) our monthly newsletter. We’ll draw a winner at random on the 12th May when our next newsletter goes out, and deliver your Sauvi Taste the Difference Experience the day after (or whenever you’d like) free of charge. You are of course completely welcome to un-join the minute after the draw is done, but we only send one newsletter per month and we like giving discounts and free stuff to our members, so we hope you’ll stick around!

PS: Congrats to the winner of the April contest, Katherine Nolan, who was drawn this morning!

This month we’re doing something a little different and issuing a challenge to the winner of our next monthly draw: beat our recession busting favourites in a supermarket challenge.

Lar Veale of SourGrapes.ie recently declared our exclusive Santa Alicia to be “cracking value at only €9.99 and beats the pants off anything from your local supermarket.” We think this is 100% correct, but we’d like you to put our best bargains to the test.

The winner of our April contest will get two of our favourite wines under a tenner and everything they need to go forth and find two supermarket wines under €10 to challenge them:

• 1 x Santa Alicia Reserva Sauvignon Blanc 2007
• 1 x Farnese Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2007
• 1 x €20 Tesco voucher
• 1 x Essential Wine Tasting Guide to prepare
• 1 x Curious Wines corkscrew to begin the battle

Obviously, we can’t force our valiant winner to spend their voucher on supermarket plonk, but our hope is that our brave hero (or heroine) will make their best effort in the Tesco aisle, choose two bottles under €10 each, and report back on how they stand up to our favourites.

How to Enter: All you have to do to enter the contest is join (or already be a member of) our monthly newsletter. We’ll draw a winner at random on the 8th of April when our next newsletter goes out, and deliver your Battle of the Recession Busters prize pack the day after (or whenever you’d like) free of charge. You are of course completely welcome to un-join the minute after the draw is done, but we only send one newsletter per month and we like giving discounts and free stuff to our members, so we hope you’ll stick around!

PS: Congrats to the winner of February’s contest, Terence Finn, who was drawn this morning!

We know, we know - everyone else is doing Paddy’s Day stuff for March but let’s face it: Ireland isn’t exactly a top producer of 1st class wines, and few wines come in that particularly festive shade of green.

But the 13th of March is also the Ides of March - a traditional Roman feast day and, on a less jolly note, the day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated. (We’re assuming you’re up to date on your Shakespeare here.)

So we’re going with the Italy theme and giving away two glorious bottles of Italian wine and a prize hamper worthy of a Roman orgy. The lucky winner of our Ides of March prize pack will win:

• 1 x Dievolino Rosso Sangiovese 2006
• 1 x Dievolino Bianco Malvasia 2006
• 1 x An Italian epicure mini-hamper
• 1 x Julius Caesar: The Manga Edition

How to Enter: All you have to do to enter the contest is join (or already be a member of) our monthly newsletter. We’ll draw a winner at random on the 4th of March when our next newsletter goes out, and deliver your Ides of March prize pack the day after (or whenever you’d like) free of charge. You are of course completely welcome to un-join the minute after the draw is done, but we only send one newsletter per month and we like giving discounts and free stuff to our members, so we hope you’ll stick around!

PS: Congrats to the winner of February’s contest, Rebecca Clark, who was drawn this morning!

Valentine’s Day is one of those occasions you can sort of take for granted when you’re all loved up, but that makes you want to start shooting people - and not with cute little arrows - if you’re not. So in the interests of equal opportunity fun, we’re pleased to announce February’s Curiously Romantic Valentine’s Day Contest:

The lucky winner of our Curiously Romantic Valentine’s Day Contest will win:

• One bottle of Lallier Grand Cru absolutely gorgeous champagne.
• A box of scrumptious Strawberry White Chocolate Truffles.
• Six heart-shaped wine (or champagne!) glass charms.
• A DVD of the silliest romantic comedy of the year and almost all the microwave popcorn you can eat.

So you can either snuggle down for a romantic night in with the one you lust, or invite the gang ’round and share out the spoils. Pop the cork, toast to love, and then settle into the couch for a great night of munching your way through a fluffy, funny film and all the ABBA you could ever want.

How to Enter: All you have to do to enter the contest is join our monthly newsletter. We’ll draw a winner at random on the 4th of February when our next newsletter goes out, and deliver your Valentine’s Day Pack the day after (or whenever you’d like) free of charge. You are of course completely welcome to un-join the minute after the draw is done, but we only send one newsletter per month and we like giving discounts and free stuff to our members, so we hope you’ll stick around!

PS: Congrats to the winner of January’s contest, Colette Herlihy, who was drawn this morning!

Despite the very best of intentions and previous vows to never go there again, we have a sneaking suspicion one or two of our more loyal newsletter readers may be be feeling a tad sore in the head and altogether sorry for themselves by the time Christmas and New Year are over.

To that end, our next prize pack features a lovingly compiled Hair Off the Dog Recovery Pack for those fuzzy mornings when you need a little extra care.

The lucky winner of our Hair Off the Dog Recovery Pack will win:

• Two bottles of our favourite lovely bubbly, Mas Macia - dry, creamy and oh so gorgeous.
• 2 x Lush Too Drunk Emotibombs to fill your shower with essential therapeutic morning after steam.
• 1 x Lush Ice Blue Soap, with rejuvenating peppermint and spearmint to clear sore heads.
• 6 x custom SHHH badges to share with your friends the morning after the night before.

These are really lovely, natural bath products that will make for a happy bod whether you’re male or female. You’ll appreciate them even if you’ve been positively angelic all season - no hangover is required (and indeed, none is recommended.) Lush products are fresh and handmade, so we do reserve the right to substitute in case of stock issues.

How to Enter: All you have to do to enter the contest is join our monthly newsletter. We’ll draw a winner at random on the 7th of January when our next newsletter goes out, and deliver your Recovery Pack the day after (or whenever you’d like) free of charge. You are of course completely welcome to un-join the minute after the draw is done, but we only send one newsletter per month and we like giving discounts and free stuff to our members, so we hope you’ll stick around!

PS: Congrats to the winner of our very first contest, who was drawn this morning and will be announced in today’s newsletter!

While you may be panicked to discover there are only 39 days until Christmas, this is nothing like the panic you’ll experience when you’re invited to drop by half a dozen holiday parties at the last minute and realise you’ve no gift for your host or hostess. (Your mammy would slap you and you know it.)

The lucky winner of our Curious Christmas Survival Contest will win:

• A half case of glorious wine - three reds and three whites.
• Six handsome chrome wine stoppers.
• Six organza bags to hold one wine stopper each.
• Six chic little gift tags specially made for wine bottles.

This Christmas Survival Kit is craftily designed to bail you out of last minute gift giving situations by making it look like you thoughtfully put together a wonderful gift for Auntie Maude, who you of course knew was coming to Christmas dinner. Put the stopper in the bag, sign the hang tag, hang them both from the wine bottle neck, and cheerfully hand them over with your best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

How to Enter: To save yourself from cringe-inducing Christmas disaster, all you have to do to enter the contest is join our monthly newsletter. We’ll draw a winner at random on the 2nd of December and deliver your Survival Kit the day after (or whenever you’d like) free of charge. You are of course completely welcome to un-join the minute after the draw is done, but we only send one newsletter per month and we like giving discounts and free stuff to our members, so we hope you’ll stick around!