Christmas party season is upon us, and it can feel overwhelming trying to work out how to pair drinks with your expansive feasting menu. We're handing over to our resident Wine Guru, Sophia Longhi to help you with your wine pairings for your canapés, your mains and your desserts.
Canapés
First of all, every party needs to start with a pop. Welcome your guests with the celebratory Grover Zampa Soiree Brut, a sparkling wine made from the Chenin Blanc grape variety. If you like Champagne, then this is made in the same way, spending 12 to 14 months on the lees before disgorgement. The contact with the lees (if you’re not a wine buff, I’m talking about the dead yeast cells, which are a by-product of fermentation) brings complexity to the wine, and encourages those bread or brioche notes to develop in the bottle. I actually think that this wine has aromas of almond croissant, which is a win for me. The Chenin Blanc grape brings notes of ripe pear and apple to the fore, so even though it is classed as a dry wine, it is much fruitier than a Champagne, if we were comparing the two. However, aromas and flavours of lemon bring freshness to it, which, along with the crisp acidity, makes this wine taste refreshing and clean - exactly what you want for an aperitif!
A dry sparkling wine like this one, with mouthwatering acidity, is always, always great when paired with one thing - FRIED GOODS. Anything crispy with a high fat content will just make this wine sing - and this wine will make that kind of food taste even better. We’re talking crisps, Bombay Mix, vegetable, fish or meat fritters, patties, samosas, all of those tasty nibbles. Make sure you serve your Grover Zampa Soiree Brut well-chilled - ideally at 6°C - and watch the party get started.
Starters
What do you like to serve as a starter at your Christmas party? I find seafood is always a nice and light way to start proceedings (if you eat it); perhaps salmon or prawns. A light, zingy white is the wine you need for this course - nothing too heavy or oaky. The Fratelli M/S White, made from a blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, is ideal. It’s fresh and zippy, but still has enough complexity and body to pair well with food. It has these wonderful salty, limey notes, which have the same effect as when you squeeze a bit of lime or sprinkle a pinch of salt on your food - it brings it alive!
Mains
Whether you are a meat eater or a vegetarian, main dishes usually pack a bit more of a punch in terms of flavours and textures - and so you need bigger wines to match. It’s a good idea to serve a white and a red for your Christmas party mains - and when you choose the right wines, either the red or the white will be suitable for the same dish. As an example, a Christmas turkey would be complemented by a rich, rounded white, such as a Viognier (like the Grover Zampa Vijay Amritraj Collection White) and also a fruity, medium-bodied red, like the Fratelli M/S Red (Sangiovese, Cabernet Franc and Syrah), which almost acts like a dollop of cranberry sauce to the succulent white meat.
If you’re going for a heavier meat, like lamb, goat or venison, the wines should follow suit. The same applies for richer, oiler vegetarian curries, as well, that might use fleshy aubergine or an intense tomato base. The Charosa Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon or the Tempranillo are delicious “fireside reds” to get stuck into over dinner. Get the decanter out, if you have one, to really let these wines open up and unfurl their many layers.
Dessert
Always end things on a sweet note - that goes for the pudding and the wine. Many of us like to carry on drinking our main course wines into the evening because we are enjoying ourselves so much, but dry wines will taste more savoury (and sometimes more bitter) when paired with sweet desserts.
For a more harmonious experience, serve your dessert with a dessert wine, like the delicious Reveilo Late Harvest Chenin Blanc. As this wine still possesses acidity, the sensation of the dessert and the wine together is extremely moreish, rather than sugary and cloying. It’s as if you can’t have a bite without a sip of the other, and so it goes on and on. Another option is one of the fruit wines from Rhythm Winery. The Alphonso Mango is incredible with ice cream (serve it on the side or pour it on top!), while the Strawberry and Pineapple pair with cheesecake like a dream. These fruit wines are great partners to chocolate desserts, too, if you want to provide something fresh to lift the intensity of the chocolate.
What a sumptuous feast ahead. Deck the halls and open those wines, we say!
For further inspiration for the Christmas season, we've compiled some winter flavour pairing recommendations as well as a gift guide for whisky-lovers.
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