Wine for Christmas Dinner

Christmas dinner is an annual feast where people usually pull out all the stops. This is the perfect time to uncork a special wine to accompany the meal. If there’s an older bottle, one you purchased while abroad in wine country, one someone gave you or one that has special meaning and you’ve been hanging onto waiting for the right time to open, this is it. Christmas is a time to share with friends and loved ones and a time to make memories. What could be more memorable than a fabulous meal with folks close to you and washing it down with a special vino? So this holiday, don’t hold back. You can sip your usual anytime. Choose a wine that lives up to your meal and make Christmas dinner spectacular.

Champagne Terms

Lots of Champagne will flow this holiday season and there’s some interesting terminology used on labels. Vintage Champagne (year on the bottle) is a blend of many wines from the same year. Non-vintage Champagne (no year on the bottle) is a blend of wines from different years. “Blanc de blanc” implies the use of white grapes only (Chardonnay). “Blanc de noirs” says strictly red grapes were used, either Pinot Noir alone or blended with Pinot Meunier. No designation and it’s a bubbly made using red and white grapes. “Grand Cru” means all the fruit that went into the wine was harvested from vineyards rated at 100% (veritably perfect) while “Premier Cru” says all the fruit came from vineyards rated 90 - 99%.

“House Wine” in Restaurants

Dining out is wonderful and who doesn’t enjoy some vino with their meal? However, the intimidation factor involved for most diners when ordering wine is huge. That’s why many folks simply order the “House Wine”. Here’s a little tip about “House Wine”, my friends. As a rule, it’s usually pretty mediocre in quality, doesn’t specifically work well with any specific dish, but roughly meshes with most things on the menu. Perhaps even more importantly, its price is marked up the most, more than any other wine on a restaurant’s list. You’re further ahead to spend a few dollars more and order a better wine as the mark-up will be lower and you’ll get a superior drink. Don’t just settle for “okay”. Simply ask your server for advice and sip better.