Have you ever had that food and wine experience where the wine and food actually made each order taste better? It is magical when it happens, but unfortunately that hardly happens by chance, especially with Christmas dinners.

It’s much better to focus on selecting wines for Christmas dinner that will generally pair with the meal overall and not each specific dish, unless you are in fact having a very special multi-course event.

Food-Friendly wines

The most food-friendly wines are usually fruit forward with higher acidity and low tannins. Wines that generally match these criteria include most sparkling wines, wines made from Sauvignon Blanc, Beaujolais, Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, and Riesling. Acidity is the most important component of food-friendly wines because wine with good acidity can “cut” foods that are rich, salty, fatty, oily or mildly spicy.

Wine recommendations

Sparkling wine — I consistently recommend starting any dinner event with a sparkling wine, it could be Champagne, Cava or Prosecco. My main reason is that the acidity in association with the bubbles act as an excellent aperitif, it opens your appetite getting ready for the scrumptious fare to come.

Rosé — This is perhaps the most versatile food-friendly wines for most food types. Rosé isn’t from a specific grape or region; it’s just a genre of wine, like red or white. The biggest producers by volume are France, Spain (where it’s “rosado”), Italy (“rosato”), and the United States. Rosé wines are typically dry; we are not talking about White Zinfandel here which are usually a little sweet. Try an old-world style rosé with Christmas Dinner this year.

Food and Wine Mistakes to avoid this Christmas

* Thinking that everyone will love your favourite wine

* Serving your most prized wine with Christmas dinner

Christopher Reckord — Entrepreneur & Wine Enthusiast. Send your questions and comments to creckord@gmail.com. Instagram: @chrisreckord Twitter: @Reckord

Captions / wine notes:

image_2713588_full.png: – In general sparkling wines are excellent aperitifs – opening the appetite for the scrumptious fare to come. Not too dry, not too sweet the Domaine Ste Michelle’s Cuvee Brut is delicate and balanced with clean, crisp méthode champenoise character.

Coleccion-Privada-Medium Rose.jpg

Rosé wines are very versatile, do try this Navarro Correas Colección Privada Rosado from Argentina with aromas and flavours of red fruits, plum, cherry and raspberry.

m-de-minuty-rose-2013-_75cl_.jpg :

A great Rose from Provence, France to try with Christmas Dinner is the M de Minuty. It is a magnificent wine showing aromatic harmony of grenache and cinsault with notes of peach and candied orange. On the palate it’s fresh and round.

Pasqua_Pinot_Grigio_Rose.jpg: Some wine lovers like to try something different and a pink Pinot Grigio is definitely different. Pasqua Pinot Grigio IGT Venezie Rosé. From Italy this Pasqua Pinot Grigio IGT Venezie Rosé has an aromatic aroma of freshly crushed cranberries and a hint of apricot.