Wine time: What to serve with holiday meals
It can be a challenge to pair the right wine with your special meals at the holidays. The main dishes, usually turkey or ham have moderate flavor intensity.
The meal, however, will usually include side dishes featuring subtle and strong flavors. Also, you may be entertaining people with different expectations.
White wines can be a good choice with holiday meals as they are usually less intense than red wine and pair well with white meats. Riesling, pinot grigio, viognier, albarino and others can pair well with vegetables and many side dishes.
For red wine, we recommend moderate flavors and soft tannins. Pinot noir, sangiovese, Beaujolais, grenache, malbec and others work well.
Cider and craft beers also pair well with holiday meals.
Wine recommendations
▪ Bivio Prosecco, Veneto, Italy, about $16. Toast your guests, toast the holiday, or just open it up and enjoy it as the opening salvo of the meal. It’s a great way to start. This sparkling wine is a pale straw color with floral aromas and discernible flavors of citrus and spice. It’s light and refreshing.
▪ Leitz Dragonstone Riesling 2013, Germany , about $18. This wine has a savory fragrance of spiced apples with hints of eucalyptus. It’s bright and well balanced with flavors of apricot, peach, tropical fruit with mineral notes on the finish.
▪ Meiomi Pinot Noir 2014, Santa Barbara Counties, Calif., about $23. This is a perfect wine for turkey or ham. It’s rose salmon in color and soft and subtle with light tannins. You’ll notice aromas of strawberries and cherry with subtle flavors of cranberry and dark cherry.
▪ New Belgium Brewing Pear Ginger Beer, Fort Collins, Colo., $10. For your guests who enjoy beer, this is a great choice to go with a holiday meal. It has floral pear aromas with flavors of zesty lemon and spicy ginger.
▪ Windy Hill Orchard Rusty Gold Hard Cider, York, about $10. This spiced cider has aromas and flavors of zesty apple, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange peel. It’s a well balanced cider and light in alcohol.
Jim and Marie Oskins live in the Lake Wylie area. They can be reached at winetime@comporium.net.
Cranberry Grand Marnier Mousse
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1/3 cup fresh cranberries
4 ounces orange marmalade
10 ounces whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 oz. Grand Marnier liqueur
1/2 cup cranberry juice
1 Oreo cookie pie crust
3 ounces orange juice concentrate
Boil the cranberries until they are tender and pop. Remove from heat, allow to cool, finely chop them and run them through a strainer. Cook the strained cranberries, the orange juice concentrate and cranberry juice in a small pot and reduce by half. In a double boiler melt the chocolate.
Once melted add the orange marmalade and cranberry mixture and combine until smooth. Stir in the Grand Marnier. Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool.
Whip the cream, slowly adding in the sugar, until stiff peaks form. Don’t over whip. Blend the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture stirring until completely incorporated and smooth.
Pour the mixture into the pie shell or individual ramekins.
Garnish with orange zest. Cool in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. This makes a rich dessert. A little goes a long way. Serves 8-10.
This story was originally published December 4, 2015 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Wine time: What to serve with holiday meals."