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  Quaffers® Feature - December 2002
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 Winter Warmers |
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 Christmas is upon us. The weather has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. What better excuse to shut the curtains, crank up the fire and spend the evening enjoying a filling supper, washed down with a suitable bottle of wine?
Our feature this month covers a few meals traditionally eaten during the winter months and recommends some wines to match the nosh. Of course, our views are entirely personal and the fun part for you is to keep trying different wines with your favourite dishes until you find your particular star matches.
Eating out is often a time when matching wines with food is particularly tricky. You know the situation: everybody chooses something different from the menu, not everyone likes white wine, and what on earth do you choose to match with that Balsamic vinegar dressing? What is most important to remember, however, is that you should be bold. If you like a particular wine and want to drink it with everything that you eat – why not? If you want to experiment a little, though, you will have some fun. If you have gone to trouble to prepare a meal at home, why not spend a little time thinking about a wine to round off the food and see if it makes a difference.
A word on wine matching. Colour is less important than weight. By that we mean match the weight of a food with the weight of a wine. The old wisdom of matching red meat with red wine and fish with white wine etc. is a little too simplistic and certainly very restrictive, particularly when the range of cuisines and wines is now so great. Much better to think about the textures and flavours of the food and don’t forget those sauces and accompaniments. A simple chicken dish, for example, might be better accompanied by a light, fruity red than a heavily oaked Chardonnay or a tart Sauvignon Blanc, yet one with a substantial buttery or creamy sauce may well be best suited to a white Burgundy. A heavyweight red such as Barolo or new world Shiraz will need a substantial beef dish to tenderise those chewy tannins and seared tuna steak will be shown off beautifully with a Pinot Noir from the Loire.
All of the wines we matched with the dishes are featured in our wine of the week pages.
 Our first wine and food match was with traditional Christmas lunch with all the trimmings: turkey, gammon, sausages and bacon, roast potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, bread sauce and gravy, not forgetting the cranberry sauce! Everybody has their personal favourite combination here and the reason for there being such a wide choice of potential wines to go with the food is because there are so many flavour combinations. Our advice is to stick with what you prefer, but keep an open mind and why not vary your wine choice one year and see if it makes a difference. (More daring – why not have several wine open and try all of them with a different mouthful to find your best match.) Good and reasonably heavy white wines will stand up to the onslaught of flavours such as white Burgundy or Australian chardonnays. Better matches will be with fruity reds – Chilean Merlot, Right Bank Bordeaux, robust Beaujolais or a Rioja. We tried an excellent Beaujolais from the Morgon cru. Wines from Morgon are more robust than many of the other crus in Beaujolais and this example was able to stand up well to the different meat flavours. Its bramble and strawberry fruit combined nicely with the cranberry sauce and its fine structure pulled together the entire meal very competently.
The second meal that we matched with wine was liver and bacon casserole with mashed potato. Liver is pretty delicate in flavour and therefore it is essential not to have a wine that is too heavy. In a casserole, however, you need to take account of the richness of the bacon and gravy. Any wine that you drink with this would need a reasonable level of acidity to cut through the fat and plenty of fruit and a touch of spice to complement the flavours. We do not recommend a white wine with this dish but, as we have said, if you have a particular favourite that you think goes hand in hand with liver and bacon, then continue to drink it. We prefer the reds with this, however, and suggest red Bordeaux, Shiraz or Italian reds from the northern and central regions. Our chosen wine was a well balanced Chianti that had plenty of dark bitter fruits, high levels of well-integrated acidity and a sweetness of finish that complemented the food very well.
Our third dish was pan-fried duck with vegetables. Duck is itself very fatty and again any wine chosen to accompany it will need good acidity levels to cut through the rich flavours. Both white wines and red wines can be a good match with duck; the deciding factor very often lies in the sauce. Whites from Alsace are a common choice to go with duck, particularly if there is a light or orange sauce. We would recommend a Pinot Gris or Riesling. If there is a cherry sauce – perhaps try a Merlot or Pinot Noir or a north Italian red such as Valpolicella. If the duck is in a rich casserole, it would be better to match it with a more robust red from the south of France or Italy. As our dish was relatively plain and simple, we opted for a wine from the Cotes de Blaye, which was made predominantly from Merlot. It had enough body to stand up to the duck and plenty of acidity to cut through the richness of the meat. The plummy fruit of the wine complemented the sweetness of the duck to perfection.
If you have any perfect food and wine combinations, please email us using the Quaffers® contact form here and let us know.
We will pick our favourite combination from your entries and the winner will receive wine vouchers.
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