By Dave Anning
Red wine
Red wine
Here are some suggestions to make shopping for your festive wines a treat — an enjoyable experience rather than a chore!
Firstly, focus on quality rather than quantity. Plenty of deals offer you lots of wine, but unless you’re entertaining large numbers, Christmas is an opportunity to treat yourself to something special.
Next, get some advice! Paying more doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy the wine more. You can get really good wine for quite reasonable money. More expensive wines are often an acquired taste — aged Bordeaux is prized for flavours of leather and tobacco, so if you like fruity vibrant wine, buying a £50 bottle of Bordeaux could be a major disappointment! Buying a few bottles you really enjoy can even be cheaper if the ’cheap’ offers end up forgotten in your cupboard.
Choosing wines to pair with your Christmas dinner and festive meals can be intimidating. You should pair wine with the strongest food flavour, but faced with meats, gravies, stuffing and sauces all on one plate, where do you start? Tell your wine merchant what you’re eating and they’ll explain why some wines work better with some foods. At the very least you’ll learn how to avoid clashes — we’ve all had a dry red wine with sweet food at some time and regretted it!
Next, consider a mixed case — but make sure it’s not just wines being offloaded by calling it a Christmas case! The festive period is essentially feasting with snacks and treats between meals — a proper Christmas mixed case will cater for the meals, but also for the sweets and snacks.
A good fizz is a must of course, but don’t be pressured into Champagne! There are top quality alternatives from around the world — especially England! The south coast of England is now a premium environment for growing the grapes used to make Champagne, hence the success of English fizz!
The classic match for a turkey dinner is a white wine from Burgundy, especially Macon, so if there’s one of these in the case it’s a very good sign! Also look out for a dessert wine. With so many sweet treats, Christmas is the perfect time to enjoy this style - the wine needs to be sweeter than the dessert — and every year I hear choruses of ‘Why don’t we buy pudding wine more often?’
Finally, look for two styles of red; a deep and flavoursome red to drink with beef or lamb (and drift off with as you doze off in front of the fire!) and a lighter style such as Pinot Noir or Gamay, that is food-friendly and will match with gammon (and even turkey!). A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!
Dave Anning