I extolled the virtues of chablis as a great Christmas wine last week, but am well aware that many want a red on the table as well as white. Which one though?
If your main course is a classic roast turkey then you need to be careful your red wine doesn’t overwhelm the meat; on the other hand, the plate will be loaded with full-flavoured extras like cranberry sauce, bacon rolls and rich gravy, so a very light red won’t cut it either.
My top choice, and one that happily goes well with roast goose, beef and robust nut roasts as well as turkey and trimmings, is New World shiraz. This might sound too heavy, and with alcohol levels often over 13.5% shiraz is certainly no wimp, but what works about this type of wine is its ripe, rounded, juicy flavour and texture.
Austere, heavily tannic reds (think young premium bordeaux) partner the Christmas feast much less well. And the syrahs and syrah blends of the Rhone (syrah is the same grape as shiraz and the southern Rhone is its first home), although decent enough a match for the classic Christmas spread, are a little too savoury/spicy.
Head to Australia in particular for the best shiraz for the big day. The wonderful tome Wine Grapes, by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz, published by Allen Lane, says the grape variety was “first taken to the Antipodes, probably from Montpellier, by James Busby in 1832” and that it was known then as scyras.
It certainly took off quickly Down Under, first in New South Wales, then spreading to other Australian wine regions. Some plantings of shiraz in the country are well over 100 years old.
Expect the flavours of a premium Aussie shiraz to be blackcurrant, plum, brambles (this fruitiness is so good with the succulent meat and with cranberry sauce), with twists of black pepper and a little sweet spice (think clove and cinnamon).
I detect dark chocolate and liquorice in some of the wines. And most important for matching with the Christmas spread is the texture: so smooth, ripe and rounded, with a fresh fruity finish.
Find it from NSW’s Hunter Valley, or Western Australia, or the most famous area of all for this variety in Oz, the hot Barossa Valley near Adelaide, South Australia. Other regions of South Australia famous for shiraz include Clare Valley, Eden Valley, McLaren Vale and Padthaway.
Make sure you serve it correctly (it is Christmas, after all, a time to make sure our wines shine). Get it out of the bottle and into a decanter or glass jug – this is to aerate the wine, which softens it further, opening up its aromas and flavours.
You don’t need to do this hours in advance, just whenever you can during a hectic day. Even at the last minute, decanting an Aussie shiraz will have a magical effect on this gentle giant of the wine world.
