2 minute read
Wine
Wines to drink with Christmas dinner
Some hearty recommendations for December 25
Whether you’re going traditional with a threecourse turkey dinner, cooking up a seafood feast or making veg the star of the show, what to drink with Christmas dinner is the ultimate conundrum for wine lovers.
No matter what is on the menu for the main event, whether it’s something for the starter, an accompaniment for the big centrepiece, or a mellow glass to see off the cheese and see you slipping onto the sofa for a nap, there’s a lot of bottle choices to be made.
When you sit down at the Christmas table, the first duty of the wine is not actually to go with the food but to go with your mood: it must be festive and celebratory. The best advice is therefore to drink the wine you quite fancy at the time. Maybe it’s classic, reassuring claret, or maybe it’s a sturdy, hairy Chilean carmenère.
Here are a couple of crackers to ensure your party gets off to the right festive, celebratory mood.
To start, offer everyone a glass (or three) of rosé Crémant de Limoux. Pure Emotion from Antech is dry, bubbly with the subtlest flavour of wild strawberry.
For the main event, go big: Barolo from Piedmont in Italy. Made from pure Nebbiolo: a grape renowned for its powerful tannins and complex flavours, Barolo often commands a high price because it’s aged for up to 10 years to let the flavours develop and become mellow.
Each mouthful brings an overpowering mix of dried black fruits, sweet spice, smoke, leather and tobacco. It’s no wonder so many Italians choose this wine for special occasions – after all, it basically tastes like Christmas. If we had to pick one, go with anything from Francone, just make sure it is at least six years old.
And to finish, why not have a limoncello to help digest all those tons of food you’ve just wolfed down - one with a bright citrus nose and zesty palate, and best served ice cold from the freezer? More than 1,800 lemons are hand-peeled for each 160-gallon batch of Fabrizia Limoncello, which the makers infuse for at least 45 days before topping it off with house-made simple syrup and packaging 775 bottles in house. ●
