HOLIDAY CHEERS
— Steve MacNaull runs down best bet holiday wines —
Essentially, holiday imbibing falls into two categories: Christmas turkey dinner wine and New Year’s bubbly.
With continued COVID restrictions ruining our plans to gather in large groups for Christmas dinners and New Year’s Eve parties, you’d think our wine consumption would be on the slide.
Quite the contrary.
Most of us are treating ourselves to better bottles at home as we prepare for and celebrate the holiday season with smaller family groups.
And you definitely should pick up extra sparkling wine to sip throughout this supposedly festive season.
Especially raise a glass, or two, or three, on New Year’s Eve to say good riddance to pandemic-blasted 2020 and hello to a vaccinated and better 2021.
The following 17 Okanagan wines will get you through the festive season (and beyond) with good taste.
Turkey wine
Luckily, Christmas dinner of either turkey or ham is a winepairing dream.
Both meats are wine friendly and all the seasonings and side dishes mean you can match almost any bottle with the festive meal as long
as its fruit-forward and aromatic.
So, really the only wines to avoid are an overly-oaked Chardonnay or a super chewy and tannic red.
Perhaps the best pairing is a slightly off-dry white or rosé.
That’s why topping my list of turkey wines this year are the green apple-and-lime 8th Generation Riesling Classic 2019 ($20.50) from Summerland; the strawberry-and-cream Intrigue Social Rosé 2019 ($17) from Lake Country; the grapefruit-and-guava 2019 Social White, also from Intrigue; and the apricot-andhoney 2018 Gehringer Brothers Ehrenfelser ($12) from Oliver.
If you like a little sweeter, the 2018 8th Generation Late-Harvest Riesling ($14 for a 200ml bottle) is lush and bursts with pear-andhoney aromas and flavours.
If you’d prefer a drier and more textured white with your turkey, try the 2019 River Stone Pinot Gris
($19) for its peach-melon-and-mineral profile.
Viognier will be a star at the Christmas table because it’s exotic (think tangerine, lemon curd, honeysuckle, ginger and honey) and will elevate turkey dinner to the realm of sublime.
Three prime examples are the 2019 Moraine Viognier ($23) from Naramata Bench, the 2018 La Frenz Vivant (74% Viognier) ($25) from Naramata Bench and 2018 Lariana Viognier ($22.50) from Osoyoos.
If you must have red wine with Christmas dinner, keep it light so it doesn’t overpower the turkey or ham.
Such an inspired choice is the 2018 Moraine Pinot Noir ($27) from Naramata Bench, which won a gold medal at the All Canadian Wine Championships for its classic cherry-rose petal-and-toasty oak profile.
Sparkling
You can go one of two ways for your New Year’s Eve sparklers.
Champagne-style wines see fine bubbles form during second fermentation in the bottle and Prosecco-style wines get their bigger bubbles from second fermentation in stainless-steel tanks.
For Champagne-method excellence check out 2016 Aster ($33) from La Frenz on the Naramata Bench for its profile of crisp apple, fresh-baked croissant and honey and Ella Rose ($31) from Maverick in Oliver for its raspberry and brioche aromas and flavours.
Fun Prosecco-style bubbles are abundant in the 2019 8th Generation Integrity ($22) from Summerland; the I Do Rose ($20) from Intrigue in Lake Country; the Social Frizzante ($20) also from Intrigue; and the Elan Effervescence ($20) and Pink
Effervescence ($20), both from Evolve Cellars in Penticton.
The Intrigue bubblies also come in playful-sized 200ml bottles for $7 each.
The Effervescence bottles from Evolve can also be purchased in a gift box for $26 each or go big with a 1.5-litre magnum in a gift box for $50.
See you in 3 weeks
There will be no Saturday papers on Dec. 26 and Jan. 2 due to the Christmas and New Year holidays.
So, that means we won’t see each other again until Jan. 9, when I’ll feature affordable wines to help you stick to your budget after festive overspending.
In the meantime, have a merry, little Christmas and a fantastic start to 2021.