WHINE # 71 – Christmas 2016

Christmas Dinner:   I am sometimes asked what wine is best matched to traditional Christmas dinner.  The short answer is whatever wine you like, but that answer is really a “cop-out”.   So, let’s assume that Christmas dinner is roast turkey with all the trimmings, and let’s assume you want a white wine with the white meat.  My suggestion is a chardonnay from California.  Your turkey probably comes with a rich, creamy gravy, and a relatively heavy, buttery chardonnay will match very well.  While I usually prefer  French Chablis to the heavier wine from California in this case I suggest you go with a new world wine.

On the other hand you may be a red wine drinker and you are not going to switch to white just because it’s Christmas.  Now the traditional advice for matching a red wine with turkey would be in the opposite direction to that given for a white wine match..  Instead of a heavy wine you will usually be advised to go with a light red; Pinot Noir being the standard choice.  This holds true for many preparations of turkey.  However, if you are a Maritimer like me you grew up with a bread and potato stuffing spiced heavily with summer savory.  My plate on Christmas day will have lots of this very spicy stuffing smothered with rich, creamy gravy.   Thus, I can go with a heavy, spicy wine, even something like an Australian Shiraz.  Confused?  Don’t worry, just open any moderately expensive bottle and enjoy.

A very special bottle:  Generally speaking, and there are lots of exceptions, the more expensive the bottle the better the wine.  But the relationship is definitely not a linear one.  Thus If you find that a $ 20 bottle tastes twice as good as a $ 10 bottle it doesn’t follow that a $ 100 bottle will be twice as good as one costing $ 50.  Just maybe it will be slightly better.

Naturally we all seek a price point where we get the maximum value; expensive  enough to be good, but cheap enough to be affordable.    Most times I choose a $ 20 bottle and only occasionally go up to $ 50.  Going above that point I generally find only a very slight increase in quality.  In other words, although the quality of the wine may be a little better, its value is a lot worse.

This leads me to my one great exception.  A few years ago my son talked me into buying a bottle of Penfolds Grange (vintage 2005).  I paid $ 340 for the single bottle.   I then very carefully laid it away wondering what occasion would justify pulling the cork. 

Well this summer an occasion arose that led me to open this wine.   My wife of 51 years had returned home from 16 days in the hospital; 11 of them in intensive care, several of those days on life support.   And, she was on her way to a full recovery. 

Once Betty had reached the point in her slow recovery that she could appreciate a good wine I decided to open my one bottle of Penfolds (I checked online and the 2005 vintage was now selling for just under $ 800).  With great care I pulled the cork and very carefully poured four exactly evenly filled glasses.  My wife, my son, my daughter-in-law and I sniffed the glass, rolled a little of the wine over our tongues, sniffed again, and eventually swallowed the most expensive glass any of us had ever tasted.

So how was it?  Speaking only for myself I can state that I had never experienced a wine with such a long finish.  The wine had nuances of chocolate and tobacco, but then so do lots of wines.  It was the length of the aftertaste that made the biggest impression.  I can honestly say that I never had a better wine, even if I have had many, many bottles of greater value.

Now, of course, it’s back to $ 20 wine, and perhaps on Christmas Eve I’ll even uncork a bottle of the $ 50 stuff. 

Blush versus Rose:  Some claim that Blush and Rose are two names for the same thing.  Uh-uh!  Blush is a mixture of white and red wine.  On the other hand, rose is made from red grapes, where the skins are removed early in the fermintation process;  before the mash turns red.  Anyway, it’s the wrong season for either, so I’ll say no more.

Opimian Offering 245:  This offering primarily has wines from South Africa.  I almost never drink South African wine, having never found a bottle that I really liked.  Consequently most of the wines are not familiar to me and I shall not make any recommendations.    However, I shall be doing a wine tour of Stellenbosch on January 4 and just maybe this will change my assessment of South African wines.