Grape Gossip, Christmas - A Festival of Wine

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For those of us who worship the vine, Christmas is a special time; a brilliant excuse (as if we needed one) to crack open some special bottles, to wow our friends with some amazing and unusual gifts, and to practice that darkest of arts – matching wine with food.

To help you along with this, I thought I’d tell you what I’m planning to serve this Christmas, and give you a few great gift ideas and some wine buying tips on the way.

Despite being almost 30, I still find a stuffed stocking hanging on my mantelpiece first thing Christmas morning. The advantage of being a little older than Santa’s average recipients is that I can open them accompanied by something fun and fizzy (well, I am celebrating, after all). However, there’s a long day to get through, and cooking a large dinner after drinking a bottle of champagne can be a bit tricky, so I tend to stick to half bottles of my favourite Billecart Salmon Brut NV (shared with my wife, of course), or something even more frivolous like a frothy, grapey Moscato d’Asti, which at only 5.5% is a refreshing way to start the day – and a great option for Boxing Day too, when delicacy may be required!

Champagne is also a good option as an accompaniment to present opening, although this depends upon when you open your presents. My family used to make me wait until after dinner, although I’m sure this was simply to teach me a lesson in patience (it didn’t work!), but I tend towards a pre-dinner ritual these days. Tradition still counts for something though and I’ll be serving sherry before dinner. This might be my favourite point of the day, as it is a rare chance to open a bottle of one of Fernando de Castilla’s amazing Antique sherries. I think a nutty, complex Oloroso will be my pick this year, but Amontillado, or a fresh Fino would be just as good. These antique sherries aren’t cheap, so if you’re on a budget, the ‘Classic’ Fino is superb served chilled.

And so, on to the main event, the Christmas Roast. I guess most people still eat Turkey, but Goose is becoming more popular, and I’ll cover Beef as well, seeing as that’s what I’ll be eating. If you’re going truly off-piste then pop into the shop, and we’ll tailor something specifically for your menu!

Turkey is actually quite a flexible meat when it comes to food matching, although it’s generally a good idea to steer away from really full bodied reds, or overly lightweight whites. At Christmas, however we complicate things with all sorts of accompaniments – cranberry sauce, chipolatas, bacon etc etc – which make the wine choice a little more tricky. The cranberry sauce requires a wine with high acidity to balance it, and the chipolatas and bacon cry out for a red – but not too much tannin, please.

My top tips are young Rioja (Crianza is best, as the fruit, acidity and oak are at just the right levels), Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley in France (great balance of fruit, acidity and tannin), or, and this would be my choice, Pinot Noir (New World for preference – perhaps from Tasmania or Chile). Pinot is perfect for its high acidity and red fruit flavours (for the cranberries), medium body (for the Turkey) and earthy sub-plot, which will complement the sausages, gravy and stuffing nicely.

If you prefer a drop of white, why not try something from the Rhone Valley. These whites, predominantly made with Marsanne and Roussanne, are great food wines as they are never overly powerful, and tend to complement food rather than dominate it. Andre Perret’s Saint Josef is perfect, as it is nice and full bodied, so has some firepower when face with the pork products.

Goose is legendary for its fattiness, so Pinot Noir, with its trademark acidity, is another good bet here. I’d tend to go for something a bit more full-bodied though, with deeper flavours – New Zealand, or a heavier style of Burgundy like Raquillet’s Mercurey Vieilles Vignes would be spot on. I recently read a well-known expert recommending Barbaresco or Barolo as a good match, which sounds intriguing – if you have one with a good few years behind it, maybe this is the time to crack it open?

When choosing a wine to go with Beef, always consider how you’re going to cook it. The tannins in red wine (and I’d always choose red for beef) react in intriguing and beautiful ways with the blood in rare meats, so if you’re serving it pink, go for something with a bit of structure – a classic claret from the left bank (Pauillac or Margaux) is perfect, as are a good Chianti, Rioja (Reserva or young Gran Reserva), Syrah from the Northern Rhone (the spice goes beautifully with black pepper), or something serious from the New World – I’d avoid a fruit bomb, as too much full-on fruit concentration will mask the subtleties of flavour in the meat. John Duval, former winemaker at Penfolds, make’s brilliant blend of Grenache, Shiraz and Mourvedre, with plenty of oak ageing which would work brilliantly.

If you like your food properly dead, you can afford to choose a wine with gentler tannin such as St Emilion, which is Merlot dominated and obtains meaty flavours as it ages.

Christmas pudding is another tricky one. You have two options really – go back to a dry sherry, or head for a sweet wine. Traditional styles of sweet wine, however, will wilt in the face of all that dried fruit and nuts, not to mention the brandy, so this is where the Muscats of Rutherglen in Australia come into their own. Made in a similar way to Sherry, using a Solera system to create a non-vintage wine which is consistent year-on-year, these wines are rich and sticky, full of dried fruit and nut flavours, with hints of toffee and treacle. There is no other wine like this, and no better choice!

Finally – getting tired yet? – comes your cheese board, and the inevitable bottle of port. The style of port you choose really depends upon your budget. Vintage port, when good, has no equal, but needs lots of bottle ageing to blossom. Late Bottled Vintage (or LBV) is a great, lower cost alternative which can be drunk relatively young. In fact, I’d rather drink LBV than a Vintage Port that isn’t mature – anything made after 1987 (except the 2002s, which really aren’t up to much) should be left in the cellar!

If you fancy something a little different this year, try a Tawny or Colheita port, both of which spend an extended period in oak barrels, producing a lighter, nutty, woody wine, which is a brilliant companion to cheese and (you guessed it) nuts.

At this point, I think you’ve had quite enough (I know it’s normally time for a kip for me), but I’ll leave you with one final tip. Remember that really there are no rules. Christmas is, after all, about enjoying yourself, so choose some wines that you love, pop the cork and enjoy!