A little guide about pairing food and wine for the festive season
Christmas is around the corner, as well as the start of the new year: this means gifts, lights and big dinners. With the usual presents’ shopping frenzy comes also the planning of the food and wine to buy for the special festive menu to enjoy with family and friends.
If food and wine matching is important all year long, in this period is fundamental, as no one wants to ruin their perfect Christmas dinner with the wrong bottle. We want to help you save time and go straight to the right wine with some advice on which natural wine to buy in this festive season to make your guests remember your dinner for long!
Five general rules to help you choose the right natural wine and Christmas food pairing
We already tackled the matter in two previous articles – “The basic guide to matching wines and food” and “Perfect and impossible food and wine pairings” – but today we see the question in a more festive way. As first thing we want to give you some general advice to keep in mind while planning your menu and the natural bottles that you will put on the table together with the chosen dishes.
- The first rule, as always, is to match the weight of both the food and the natural wine: rich dishes go with full-bodied wines, while delicate food is the perfect pairing with a light wine. Remember: for your dinner to be perfectly balanced, no taste has to cover another.
- Acidity is your best ally: use it with fat, rich dishes and make them more enjoyable.
- The texture is also an important factor to consider: the more texture the food has, the more tannin has to be present in the chosen natural wine.
- On the other hand, tannin is not a good pairing with salty food: avoid the match!
- The wine served has always to be sweeter than the dish.
Some famous festive food and natural wine pairings
Do you still have to decide your menu and have no idea yet? What about some pre-made couples that can help you make your Christmas dinner unique? Here we collected some, enjoy!
Main courses:
Turkey, the king of the Christmas table, is a perfect match with red, firm wines; we advise to pair it with a Cabernet or a Sangiovese.
If your choice is a goose-based main dish, we advise a fresh Riesling or a Pinot Noir, o a red light wine to fight the richness of the plate.
For beef dishes, red and full, one of the best choices is a nice Cabernet Sauvignon or a Malbec.
Cheese:
Hard cheese is perfectly matched with a bottle of natural Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay.
Goats cheese, thanks to its rich taste, can be paired with a Sauvignon Blanc and a Pinot Noir.
Desserts:
Our advice, as we sell some of the best natural Italian wines, is to match them with a dessert like in Italy, where at the end of the dinner a Prosecco or a Moscato are never missing! If you want more advice on these, do not miss our article about how to match wine and dessert.
We hope this article can help you set up an unforgettable festive dinner: our natural wines will do their part for sure, why not try our Christmas/Party Time Collection?
