Roast turkey and Mencia

By now you might think I’d have explored all possible permutations with turkey but sommelier Jacob Kocemba was singing the praises of Mencia with turkey on Twitter the other day and as we had a magnum handy I thought I’d give it a try.

It was, admittedly a particularly good one - the Petalos Bierzo from Alvaro Palacios under the Descendientes de J Palacios label - in magnum which had more richness and depth than some younger mencias but stood up magnificently to the bird and all the trimmings - and to the cold turkey the following day. Majestic has the 2012/13 vintages on offer at a very competitive £13.86 a standard bottle at the moment if you buy any six bottles. It’s normally around £18.

Roast goose with Nebbiolo

As a chef friend who recently took over a farm had some geese to get rid of we had goose for our main Christmas meal this year - stuffed somewhat improbably with hay (long story. Not such a good idea!)

We picked out a bottle we’d recently bought from another friend Marc Millon who runs a small wine business called Vino importing Italian wines from small growers. It was a 2005 Langhe Nebbiolo from Cascina Fontana, a Barolo producer with whom they’ve been dealing for years. You can read more about them here
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It was just perfect with the goose, having the acidity to cut through the fat and a lovely dark, damsony flavour - still fruity enough at 4 years old to take on the accompanying red cabbage but not so intense as to overwhelm an already full-flavoured plateful. It also went very well with the pork and fennel rillettes for which I posted a recipe the other day.

I don’t know how Vino’s stocks of the 2005 stand but the 2007 vintage is currently selling in Berry Bros & Rudd for £20, quite a bit cheaper than the £33.50 you would pay for the Fontana's Barolo.

Tarte au citron with Helmut Lang Beerenauslese Chardonnay

Citrus flavours are difficult to match with wine, as I’ve mentioned before, but a classic lemon tart with its combination of sharpness and sweetness is particularly tricky. The better a tart is the more it will tend to strip the flavour out of any accompanying wine, so much so that it’s almost worth serving a shop-bought one (of which there are some very good examples) if you have a serious dessert wine to show off.

The other day though, I came across an excellent pairing which was a 2006 Helmut Lang Beerenauslese Chardonnay from Austria which Tanners sells for the very reasonable price of £9.90 a half bottle (a bargain for a sweet wine of this quality).

The reason it worked so well was that it was exceptionally liquorous, coating the palate so that the sharpness of the lemon balanced but didn’t dominate. It would also be a fantastic wine to have in your cellar for Christmas drinking which I suppose we need to start thinking about soon.

Heavens - how fast it comes round!

Fish pie and Chardonnay

With just over three weeks to go to Christmas it’s time to begin planning your holiday drinking if you haven’t done so already. You may have already decided what to eat and drink for the Big Meal itself but chances are you’ll have to provide several other meals over the holiday period for which it’s useful to have an appropriate bottle.

Fish pie is a family favourite in our household not least because it provides a contrast to all the rich turkey and nibbles that seem to dominate our eating for several days. It also has the virtue of being able to be made ahead. I generally make it with cod, prawns and a few tiny queen scallops all folded into a creamy sauce with a mashed potato topping.

Winewise I think it’s hard to beat a fresh young unoaked or very lightly oaked Chardonnay as a companion. I recently came across just such a one in the charmingly named St-Bris le Vineux outside Auxerre from an organically run property called Ghislaine et Jean-Hugues Goisot. It’s a Côtes d’Auxerre 2006 and just delightfully fresh and crisp. Unfortunately they are pretty well sold out of this year’s vintage so that unless you’re passing the domaine or in a good independent French wine merchant you may find it hard to get a bottle but there are many other simple, modest white burgundies - or cool climate Chardonnays from elsewhere - that would do an equally effective job. What you should be looking for is clean, citrussy rather than tropical fruit.