Just one week until Christmas! Whilst I fall pretty much equidistant on the scale between Santa and Scrooge, I do like enjoying good food and wine and the so-called Festive Season is a good excuse to push the boat out. As a result, some of the wines I’m suggesting here are more expensive than the ones I normally advocate. So, if after purchasing presents, food and whatnot, the situation is tight, I’ve also added a less painful option for each of the five categories.
BREAKFAST
Whether it’s a relaxing breakfast, indulging in eggs and freshly squeezed orange juice or a frantic affair while children are quite literally bouncing off the walls after Santa’s visit, you’re going to need some bubbles. If I may make a plea: please, opt for a grower Champagne rather than one of the big négotiant brands. There are so many I could pick, but biodynamic producer Champagne Fleury and organic-certified Christophe Lefevre always deliver good value for money. Alternatively, in the Monti Lessini, just north of Soave in the Veneto, you find the grape variety durella, which can be made via the autoclave method into a more racy version of prosecco, but it can also be made via the traditional method into a wine which easily holds its own against a Crémant and the best ones could be mistaken for Champagne when tasted blind. We’ll no doubt be popping open a zéro dosage Epoche 2019 from Daniele Piccinin on Christmas morning.
HAVING TURKEY FOR LUNCH? Someone explain to me again why we go through the hassle of cooking turkey at Christmas? It demands far too much cooking time, takes up all the space in the oven, and does anyone actually like the taste very much? It’s also hard to suggest a good pairing because you need to balance the wine with the strongest flavour on the plate, which often isn’t actually the turkey. But, I like my turkey with a generous helping of stuffing – sage and onion ideally, or thyme and lemon – and in that case, a somewhat forceful skin contact wine is what I would suggest. If you want to splurge, who does skin contact better than Josko Gravner? I recently drank his Ribolla 2015 which would work superbly well. Alternatively, go for a skin-contact timorasso like that of Rocca Rondinaria.
OR EVEN GOOSE? I remember festive celebrations with French families that involved goose. Fattier than turkey, this richness calls for a red wine but a delicate one at that. If you’re going to splurge, you could go far wrong than pop a St Joseph from Pierre Gonon. I recently tried the 2019 which, after two minutes in a carafe, was young but in marvellous form. If you like violets, dried rose petals, dark fruit, menthol, unicorns and rainbows, this is absolutely worth the expenditure. If that’s not entirely your jam, you could opt for a different kind of light-to-medium bodied red, one with high acidity but less of the aromatics… and recently I’ve been thinking a lot about freisa (Piemontese grape variety which shares 85% of its DNA with nebbiolo) so my mind is taking me to the Monferrato area, to wineries such as Migliavacca and Tere Ruse.. but you might find a Langhe Nebbiolo like that of Olek Bondonio easier to find. Both are wines which have grip without force, some more rustic than others but all have an acidity which would work well with goose.
WHAT ABOUT COTECHINO? Italians traditionally eat this fatty pork sausage that needs to be boiled for several hours on New Year’s Eve, rather than December 25th, but you do find it in the Veneto as a staple throughout the winter months. It’s made from the rind and fatty parts of the pig and thus often needs a good horseradish sauce to cut through. I like pairing it with a solid, hefty, red wine like a Bordeaux blend.
Hold your horses – am I really suggesting drinking classic Bordeaux on a natural wine blog? Oh yes, I am. It’s not something I drink everyday but good Bordeaux achieved its fame and star-status for a reason. My go-to is biodynamic producer Christophe Pueyo, based in Saint Emilion. He makes a Grand Cru La Fleur Garderose which would be my top pick to go with cotechino. Merlot-heavy and with a 30% of caberet franc adding spice, it has power, structure and elegance. Failing that, there’s a local producer called Santa Colomba (in Lonigo, Colli Berici, Veneto) who makes a wine called Il Moro, the best Bordeaux-blend coming from these parts. This is predominantly merlot with a side of cabernet sauvignon and the goldilocks amount of oak.
WITH THE CHEESEBOARD AND FOR AFTERS…
Sweet wine consumption is in fast decline; so let’s try to reverse that for a day, and maybe enjoy it so much that it becomes a new year’s resolution to drink more?
If you’re having Christmas pudding, or really anything with raisins and dried fruit, push the boat out with a sweet Madeira. You can find Madeira wines at many different sweetness levels – my personal favourite are those on the drier end of the scale (so I look for words like sercial and verdelho) – but at Christmas, an aged malmsey – like the Blandy’s 15 that my parents brought back from Funchal for me – would do just the trick.
For us, we’ll be drinking a Passito Monte Sorio made by my husband from garganega grapes grown on volcanic soils, which are picked early and hung up to dry for several months. This passito is not sickly sweet (like the namesake wines which are typically served to tourists in Florence with cantucci biscuits) but instead has limited residual sugar, a good acidity to give backbone and aromas of almonds and hazelnuts. It pairs really well with aged cheeses and nutty biscuits.
Still looking for inspiration?
In 2014, I drank an Exclusive Vintage 2004 Brut Zero BdB Champagne to calm my nerves after staying four nights over New Year’s Eve in a haunted duck house.
The year before, because waterleaks meant that my kitchen was out-of-use, dinner was a bottle of classic Bordeaux: Château Leoville Poyferré 1999.
And more generally, in 2016, I did a round up of 12 drinks which I like to have on hand over the holidays.
Got Legs 