Festive Season Wine Pairings
With the festive season upon us, now is the time to start planning the ultimate feast for your family and friends. Not sure how to pair wine with your courses throughout lunch or dinner? Here are our suggestions for the ultimate festive celebration!
Starter
Start your feast with oysters, pâté or blinis with salmon roe/caviar. Nothing says 'celebration' more than the sound of a cork popping, so sparkling wine is the perfect pairing here to get your party started. Be on the lookout for something with some bottle age and that is made Méthode Traditionelle.
Entrée
Whether it's salmon, trout, chicken, prawns or a fresh tomato salad with burrata, continue your feast with a glass of Chardonnay or something more exotic, such as a Marsanne Roussanne. Offering body, flavour and palate weight co-existing with structure, texture and restrained acidity, they're the perfect pairing for light and fresh flavours.
Main
Whether it's pork, duck, turkey, beef or lamb, enjoy your main course paired with a glass of cool climate Shiraz, otherwise known as Syrah. Syrah is elegant and complex without being too full-bodied, making it versatile for matching with most proteins, and light enough that it can be enjoyed during the warmer weather.
Cheese
If you're going all out with an extravagant feast, enjoy a range of local cheeses with a lighter wine such as Rosé, Semillon or a 'late harvest' wine, such as Botrytis or Riesling. Choose a mix of cheddar, comté, manchego, brie, camembert and blue cheese for the ultimate indulgence. Late harvest wines are usually sweeter, so they are the perfect match for the saltiness in blue cheese.
Dessert
The sweetest course of all, if your dessert is based around berries, meringue or sponge cake, enjoy your dessert with a glass of Botrytis. This wine is rich and hedonistic, luscious and viscous yet elegant and structured and the perfect way to finish your meal. If your dessert is chocolate based, seek out a Pedro Ximenez to take your dessert to the next level.
