Pairings | Brandy
8 great wine and other matches for Stollen
Although stollen is a bit lighter than the classic British Christmas baking some of the pairings I suggested with mince pies (like sweet sherry and tawny port) will work too . . .
As you no doubt know it’s a delicious yeasted German fruit bread, lightly spiced, filled with marzipan and dredged with icing sugar.
It’s the kind of thing you’d most likely have mid-afternoon or as a mid-morning snack so the most likely accompaniment would be coffee or tea. That said if you’ve got some in the house and are disinclined to make a pud you could have it after dinner with a glass of sweet wines.
Here are 8 ideas that appeal to me.
Coffee
So obvious, perhaps that it doesn’t need saying but the great German tradition of kaffee und kuchen points to coffee with stollen rather than tea.
Schnapps
Of all the fruit-flavoured schnapps I’d favour an apple or pear-flavoured one or similar Alsace eau-de-vie, apples and pears and almonds being a well-tried and tested flavour combination
Spätlese, auslese or beerenauslese riesling
Germans make some great sweet wines with lovely acidity that would be a real treat with this festive bake. The Wine Society suggests a vendange tardive gewurztraminer.
Dark rum
I like this idea more than malt whisky. It should work beautifully given the vanilla and brown sugar notes in many rums
Pineau de Charentes
An interesting suggestion from contributor Lucy Bridgers - this blend of grape must and cognac is normally drunk as an aperitif but would work really well with stollen. As would . . .
Cognac and other oak-aged brandies such as armagnac or Spanish brandy
Stollen recipes like this one often have a touch of brandy though a large cognac might possibly not be appropriate at tea-time ;-)
Marsala dolce
Less common than sweet sherry or madeira but I think rather well suited to pairing with marzipan and dried fruits. As is malaga.
Amaretto
Possibly an overkill on the almond front but if you like the taste of marzipan you may enjoy this extra level in your drink. I’d serve it well chilled or on the rocks, though.
Champagne, prosecco or sekt
It’s often forgotten that champagne is sweetened with a sugar solution called a dosage so although it might strike you as dry there’s a residual sweetness that makes it compatible with cake. And stollen isn’t that sweet. Sekt would of course be the more authentic choice but it’s hard to find a good one in the UK. And prosecco works well with panettone so should with stollen too.
Photo © Olga Bombologna at shutterstock.com
What’s the best wine to drink with Christmas pudding? (Updated)
There is an argument that you don’t need anything to drink with the classic Christmas pudding*, especially if you’ve sloshed brandy all over it but if you’re pairing other courses of the Christmas meal you might fancy a small glass of something sweet.
How rich is your pudding?
Which type depends on your pudding. Some are much darker and stickier than others. Basically you’ve got a choice of serving something equally intense or going for a lighter, fresher contrast.
Both options have some potential drawbacks. If you serve a rich sweet wine like a liqueur muscat or an ultra-sweet sherry like a PX you can make an already rich pudding overwhelmingly rich.
On the other hand a lighter dessert wine such as a Sauternes or a sparkling wine like Moscato, can get lost amidst all the rich spicy fruit.
In my view the type of wine that works best is a dessert wine with a touch of orange or apricot. Inexpensive options would be a Spanish Moscatel de Valencia (one of the best value dessert wines around), a Muscat de St Jean de Minervois from Southern France or an orange muscat such as Andrew Quady’s Essencia.
Better still but slightly pricier and harder-to-find would be a Passito di Pantelleria, a glorious marmaladey dessert wine from an island just off Sicily or a Hungarian Tokaji (the latter is also a particularly good match for Stilton and other blue cheeses).
And I recently enjoyed a marsala dolce which brought out all the rich dried fruit flavours in the pudding. A sweet madeira, where the sweetness is balanced by a lovely acidity, would work well too.
All these will work better if you serve your pudding with whipped cream rather than brandy butter which has a strong alcoholic flavour of its own.
If you can’t resist the brandy butter try a 10 or 20 year old tawny port which is slightly less sweet than a ruby port like a Late Bottled Vintage and I think the nutty, treacley flavours work better than brambley ones. Serve it as they do in Portugal, lightly chilled.
If you’re a beer fan you could also put a bottle of barley wine (an extra-strong ale) on the table. A classic example is J W Lees Harvest Ale.
Or serve your pud with a small well-chilled glass of Grand Marnier or other orange-flavoured liqueur.
*For those of you unfamiliar with a British Christmas pudding it’s a steamed pudding full of dried fruits like raisins, currants and figs, often with some citrus peel added.
Photo © Anna_Pustynnikova at shutterstock.com
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