What wine to pair with goose

If you’ve decided to serve goose rather than turkey this Christmas you’ve already opted to be adventurous. So you could arguably be adventurous about your wine pairing too.

I say arguably because family members often get a bit odd around the festive season, digging their heels in and insisting on having something they’ve had hundreds - or at least tens of times - before.

Goose is, of course, stronger-flavoured than turkey - more like game but - crucially - quite a bit fattier which makes it essential in my book to look for a wine that has a fair level of acidity. It also tends to be accompanied by powerfully flavoured accompaniments such as chestnuts and red cabbage. Other traditional (and very good) accompaniments are potato stuffing, apples and prunes which can also affect your pairing:

Here are my suggested options...

Best wine pairings with goose

Top quality German or Alsace Grand Cru Riesling

Probably the best match of all if you’re planning an apple or apple and prune stuffing. A dry spätlese Riesling would be ideal, cutting through the fat and providing a subtle touch of sweetness. The drawback is that your guests may well expect a red - but there’s no reason why you can’t serve both. 

The best food pairings for riesling

Gewürztraminer

A bolder choice still for Christmas. Obviously it’s not to everyone’s taste but if you serve a slightly spicy stuffing, especially one that contains dried fruits and/or ginger it would make a great match. Again look for a top quality wine with some intensity from Alsace or New Zealand which is making some great examples.

The best food pairings for gewürztraminer

Barolo or Barbaresco

My preferred red wine with goose, Both have the structure and acidity to cope well with the rich flavour of the meat. They’re also impressive special occasion wines which is what you look for at Christmas. I wouldn’t be inclined to serve red cabbage with them though.

The best food pairings for Barolo and Barbaresco

Pinot Noir

Probably the most likely wine to please your guests and certainly the one to choose if you’re going for red cabbage, sweet potatoes or other richly flavoured veg. I’d choose an example with some sweet, silky fruit rather than big tannins otherwise you may suffer from palate overload.

The best food pairings for Pinot Noir 

Rioja gran reserva

A safe bet - just as good with goose as it is with game. Likely to be popular with older members of the party.

The best food pairings for Rioja 

Best beer pairings for goose

Strong Belgian trappist beers such as Chimay or beers made in that style

These are just as good a match for goose as wine is if truth be told but there are, admittedly, likely to be fewer takers. No harm in having one or two available though.

Oude gueuze

Probably the most off-the-wall choice on my list but for those who like it - and since writing my beer book An Appetite for Ale I now do - it’s a brilliant match.

A Goose Island beer

Well, why not? This Chicago-based bewery makes great beer and it would be a bit of a laugh to have a few bottles on the side. Wouldn’t go badly either. The most widely available one in the UK is the IPA (India Pale Ale).

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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

You might also find the following useful:

8 great wine and other matches for stollen

8 great drinks to match with mince pies

8 great drinks to match with mince pies (updated)

Mince pies are so popular we all start eating them well before Christmas so what’s the best drink to pair with them?

If you’re sneaking one as an afternoon snack it’s most likely to be a cup of tea but they do pair particularly well with fortified wines like port, sherry and madeira, wines that also go well with Christmas cake in case that’s on the menu too.

For those of you who don’t live in the UK and are unfamiliar with mince pies, they’re a small sweet pie traditionally made from minced meat but nowadays made with dried fruits such as currants, raisins and sultanas.

Although there lots of variations on mince pies nowadays I’m thinking mainly of the classic mince pie ‘cos Christmas is all about tradition ... 

* Mulled wine - Never mind the match it’s just what you offer the carol singers on Christmas Eve isn’t it? To tell the truth - whisper it - mulled cider is just as good. Find my favourite recipes here

* Sweet sherry - again a traditional pairing and I think a good one. One of my favourites is Matusalem but own label cream sherries are perfectly good.

* Sweet madeira - less traditional than sherry, but just as delicious. Basic blended madeiras like Blandy’s Duke of Clarence, are fine otherwise look for a Bual or Malmsey

* Tawny port - you may be used to drinking a ruby port like a Late Bottled Vintage but why not try a nutty 10 Year Old Tawny for a change? Otima is a modern interpretation that goes particularly well with mince pies

* Sweet port-like wines from the south of France like Banyuls, Rivesaltes and Maury - maybe a little harder to track down but ideal if you want something different

* Barley wine - which is not actually a wine but a strong, sweet-tasting beer. Any indie with a decent beer range should have one.

* Christmas ales - I’m never totally convinced about Christmas ales with savoury food - except perhaps ham - but they’re great with Christmas baking.

* Black tea Which you might think hardly bears saying but try making it from loose leaf tea, in a pot rather than with a teabag and taste the difference.

photo by Monika Borys For Unsplash+

What wines (and other drinks) pair best with noodles?

If you’re wondering what to drink with noodles you need to think about the way and the flavours with which they’re cooked rather than the fact that they’re noodles. (Yes, I know pasta counts as noodles too but I’m thinking more of Asian recipes.)

They’re not an obvious dish with which to drink wine particularly if they’re served in a broth like this recipe for Khao Soi noodles. In fact you don’t actually need to drink with them at all. But dry dishes do go quite well, particularly Japanese noodle recipes.

Here are some wine and other pairings to try:

Aromatic white wines

The most obvious go-to with a bowl of noodles. My favourites would be a dry riesling or grüner veltliner or try a Hungarian dry furmint or harslevelu. Often it’s the sauce or broth that dictates that as with this laksa.

Crisp dry white wines

Crisp whites like albarino, picpoul de pinot and koshu pair well with cold noodles like this prawn noodle salad

Inexpensive red burgundy

Maybe not the most obvious choice but it did the trick with this sukiyaki. It would probably go with a beef pho too

Lager

Probably most people’s choice when it comes to beer. It certainly works with ramen and pad thai (below) though if you’re eating a cold noodle dish like this one try a weissbier.

Sake

Particularly with Japanese noodles for obvious reasons

Green tea

Especially genmaicha - a particularly savoury green tea flavoured with roasted brown rice. Again good with Japanese noodles.

Kombucha

Being a fermented drink kombucha (fermented tea) has a tiny amount of alcohol but unless you’re avoiding it altogether it’s negligible. A good match for many noodle dishes too

Sour plum tea

A recent discovery that worked really well with some spicy Sichuan noodles

A fruity cocktail

A fruity cocktail like this Guava Collins works well with hot spicy noodles