The perfect wine for your holiday meal

By By Stan Torgerson / wine columnist
Nov. 26, 2003
Company, office and private Christmas cocktail parties; family dinners; and visiting friends and relatives who eat well, if not wisely, are the order of the day.
We seem to have abandoned egg nog in recent years. The beverage of choice has become wine, both for cocktail party sipping and as an accompaniment to sit-down dinners. Here are a few suggestions about what complements what food, based on avid and hard working research. It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.
First, the well known advice: red wine with red meats and sauces, white wine with white meats such as chicken or turkey as well as fish and seafoods. That's true to a point, but some wines are more versatile than you may think. No. 1 on the list of food-friendly wine is champagne or sparkling wines.
It is hard to go wrong with a bottle of the familiar bubbly. It pairs beautifully with fish, lobster or scallops and is easily the wine of choice for turkey, goose or dishes featuring chicken. A bottle of Roederer's Anderson Valley sparkling wine is almost alone as an accompaniment for foods with cream sauces and that includes creamy salad dressings. It's almost impossible to find a wine that takes kindly to dressings made with vinegar. Don't even try. Try champagne with soup and grilled vegetables, but it is not the best choice with red meat.
If you plan a prime rib roast for Christmas dinner, the wine of choice should be a cabernet sauvignon, a zinfandel or a burgundy. There are so many good ones on the market it is hard to recommend. Any Rosemount wine from Australia would go well if it is not a blend. I love their cabernets and shiraz but I find their blend of the two to be inferior wine.
Merlot is popular, but I prefer a wine with a bit more body and depth. On the other hand using merlot with beef stew, short ribs, hamburgers or beef Stroganoff is an excellent idea. Columbia Crest is very good and priced quite fairly. Merlot also pairs very well with duck as does red burgundy.
For lamb nothing beats a rich zinfandel, syrah or burgundy. A Cline syrah at about $10 is a real value if you can find it in Meridian.
As for you deer hunters, that meat has more friends than you might imagine. The cabernet, shiraz from Australia and zinfandel are excellent but not the merlot. Ravenswood zin would do well.
One of the hardest wines to pair with food is a white zinfandel. The sweet taste that makes it so popular works against it at the dinner table. It will drink well with delicate broiled fish such as sole, flounder or snapper or the same fish in a light medium sauce. Pasta with Asian sauces can use white zinfandel and you can drink it with raw crisp or steamed vegetables. But it is a stretch with food, particularly when chardonnay is so versatile.
Chardonnay, like champagne, has seen few foods it doesn't like, except for the big red meat dishes. It loves poultry of all kinds, pasta soups and fish. It is the drink of choice with brie and other semi-soft cheeses but will still compliment Swiss, Gouda and other mild, firm cheeses. Landmark Overlook is my favorite in the under $25 class. The Meridian chardonnay is excellent for its price of about $10.
Soups are served often during the holidays, either as a first choice or a main meal. Use chardonnay or champagne with vegetable purees, potato based soups or any soup made with chicken. When the soup is meat based we recommend merlot.
Many families enjoy oysters during the holidays, mine included. But there are only two wines we drink with oysters, either a muscadet, which may be hard to find, or a sauvignon blanc which are found in any good wine store. Oysters do not take well to any trace of sweetness and the high acid content of muscadet or sauvignon blanc make both the oysters and the wine taste better. St. Supery sauvignon blanc would be a good choice.
If you plan a backyard barbecue the beverage of choice is usually beer and that's fine. But if you'd like to pair the ribs with wine, select a big, powerful red zinfandel such as Karly's Warrior Fires or even their Bucks Ten Point. The spice in those wines is suited for smoked foods.
But always remember you will get exactly what you are willing to pay for. If you try to find a bargain with a $6 or $8 price tag but a $15 flavor you're going to be disappointed. Stretch a little and look at the $12 to $20 wines or even beyond. It's Christmastime. Give yourself a present and buy better wines during the holidays. Of course, there's a problem. You'll never be able to go back to the $6 wines again.