Christmas is upon us and a big question while preparing your Christmas lunch or dinner meal is which wines to serve with what food and when.
For most of us the Christmas dinner is part of a long day spent with family, with quality and bonding time before and after the meal and with festive atmosphere. In my family, Christmas hasn’t started until sparkling wine is poured, though pre-dinner drinks of Rose, or a light white wine eg. Pinot grigio can be perfect especially if there are appetisers or pica-pica on the table. Choose fresh, or lightly prepared seafood starters with a sparkling wine starter (think smoked salmon, fresh prawns) or for Rose and white wine you can match with a variety of starters including a cheese board or antipasto.
For the main meal, where often several meat courses are on offer, I favour a versatile red wine. Choose something medium bodied, without moderate levels of acid and tannins and you’ll be able to enjoy it with most of the courses on offer. Of course if there is fish on offer, don’t be afraid to start your main meal with a glass of white wine while eating fish, but then go to the red with pork, lamb or beef dishes (as if you needed an excuse to get seconds from the dinner buffet!) I’d normally choose a tempranillo or sangiovese which are hugely versatile with a range of foods. You could try a merlot as well.
On Christmas day, the rule book gets thrown out when it comes to servings and varieties of desserts on offer. Welcome to the exciting world of dessert wine pairing! In Manila, I’ve found the dessert wine options to be extremely limited but my top pick in the Philippines hot climate is to drink moscato a low alcohol, sweet, spritzy wine, typically consumed chilled as a pre-dinner drink. However it actually makes an excellent pair to fruit/cream based desserts such as creamy pinoy fruit salad or try it with a cream/fruit topped meringue (pavlova in Australia).
Of course at Wine by Chris Urbano we’re helping you enjoy wine more on Christmas day with our specially curated Christmas gift pack. It features our Pizzini Pinot Grigio perfect for pre-dinner with appetisers, Sangiovese from Chrismont for main course, and a bottle of our very popular All Saints premium Moscato for the dessert course. Available now for 3000 pesos, delivered.
Wherever and with whomever your celebrating Merry Christmas from all of us at Wine by Chris Urbano.
