Christmas is not just about delicious food but also good drinks. One of the best decisions for a good main course is choosing a fine wine, but the question arises: what kind of wine should we choose for what dish? After all, a lot depends on whether a fish or a poultry dish is on the table. Máté Szokolai, the winemaker of Chateau Mate, gives us tips.
“Let’s start with the typical Hungarian eating habits and talk about hake. This is not a Hungarian fish species, but it is consumed by almost all Hungarians. The perfect choice is an Italian Riesling with good acids; feel free to drink it as a spitzer. However, for a spicier, roasted bream, a good Blue Frankish rosé is more appropriate,” said Máté Szokolai in the article of Origo.
A typical Hungarian Christmas menu starts with a heart-warming fish soup. For this, the expert recommends a Szekszárd Kadarka or Blue Frankish. In theory, you should not pair wine with soup, but this is a very dense fish soup, so a light red wine could pair nicely with it. Apart from Hungarian fish, if salmon or silver bream comes our way, we can experiment as much as we want. A great choice is to drink rosé champagne with the salmon. The winemaker recommends an exciting white wine for the bream.
The side dish always affects which wine fits a particular food, so we could experiment some with the wines.
“There are general rules that can be considered, such as pairing white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat. One good example of this is choosing pinot noir for roasted duck breast. But a professional, experimental person who loves the excitement and the novelties can easily deviate from that,” says Máté Szokolai.
Rosé champagne is the perfect fit for a medium fried steak. For crispy or fried rib, a wine from Somló or Tokaj-Hegyalja is a good match. For a beef stew, we can drink a good old Villány red wine, Bordeaux wines, or even some Cabernet Franc could be considered. For game meat, be sure to look for some “wild”, characteristic wine, for example, Spanish red wine. Tempranillo cannot be a bad choice.
As for desserts, we should drink champagne. In addition, towards the end of dinner, it can bring a little freshness even to everyday life, not just during the holidays. The expert recommends sweet wine for gingerbread, Porto wine for poppy seed bejgli, and an older aszú for walnut bejgli.