What wines for the Festivities? Drinks, sweets, cheese & beyond
This is part two of our Festive special.
Part one was all about the savoury side of festive feasting! Please click here to read the best Wines to drink for the Festive Season.
If you are planning a get together or just something to have in the fridge in case friends drop in, you will not just need something for the main meal, but also something for cheese. Or… you simply want something to enjoy with dessert. Particularly, traditional desserts laden with dried fruit.
Read on for our recommendations!
Part 2: The nibbly, cheesy, sweet side of the Festivities….
Appetisers!
Those delightful small bites that often explode with flavour are a wonderful part of any get together. Really, this is some of the easiest planning that you will do. Because no doubt you will have a wide range of flavours, so therefore it is likely that you can choose your favourite mid week style quaffer.
Or you might be pouring fizz. Sparkling wines will go very well with most flavours. And they will have the fruitiness to cope with salty snacks. So too will many white wines particularly fruitier styles.
Why not try these:
Part 2: The cheesy, chocolatey side of the season….
Say Cheese!
Wines to go with your cheese course, or a cheese anti-pasti platter, usually are not that different from the rest of the meal. And it really doesn’t matter what order of the event you serve your cheeses.
As a rule of thumb:
- Fresh cheeses such as goats cheese go very well with sparkling white wine and very crisp whites. Even a dry rose will work here.
It is the acidity in these fresh cheeses you need to match with an acidic wine.
- Bloomy cheese such as Brie and Camembert go very well with Champagne and sparkling white wines, lightly oaked white wines, dry rose and some pinot noirs.
It is the fattiness in these cheese that needs acid, but also they are robustly flavoured so you need a wine to match.
- Mature hard cheese such as Cheddar & Manchego will match with red wines such as Rioja, malbec or a red with some tannins.
Hard cheeses have well formed proteins which will soften tannins in wine. Because of this softening, you need wine with tannins to keep that wine balanced with the cheese.
- Blue cheese such as the English favourite Stilton always goes well with a sweet wine or a dry red wine. Particularly a Port as is traditional.
Blue cheeses are saltier. Therefore, that saltiness matches really well with sweet wines and with tannic red wines. Salt softens tannins in wines.
Why not try these:
Fresh cheese recommendations:
Bloomy cheese recommendations:
Mature hard cheese recommendations:
Blue cheese recommendations:
Bring on the dessert!
Here it will depend on what you choose. Desserts that are made of fresh fruit and lashes of cream require different wines to those that are made of dried fruit, chocolate or deeper flavours and served with a vanilla spiced custard.
Lighter desserts will work well with botrytis dessert wines or late harvest white wines. An off dry Alsace white wine such as a Gewürztraminer will be a great choice here.
What about those traditional plum puds, mince pies, fruit cakes and chocolates? Well, these foods require sweeter and more robust flavoured wines. Here is where you might like a Port wine or try something different and pour an Australian sparkling red.
