We’re having Christmas Eve and Christmas day festivities (my family and my in-laws) at our house this year, and I’m trying to come up with decent but not-too-expensive wines to pair up with the food. My husband and I drink mostly reds–usually cabernet sauvignon, occasionally a merlot–but we don’t object to whites. My problem is that, while I enjoy drinking wine, I don’t know a lot about pairing it with food. And of course, since I’m hosting the holidays for the first time, I’d like to not come up with an absolutely wretched pairing, so I would appreciate any suggestions very much!
We don’t eat meat on Christmas Eve, so we’ll probably have some kind of smoked salmon dish (Emeril has a salmon quiche recipe I’m going to test out to see if that’ll work) and/or pasta in some kind of cream sauce. (I have to figure out what future brother-in-law will and won’t eat before making final decisions.) Soup will either be oyster stew or borscht.
Christmas day lunch–I’m sticking with my family tradition of Italian cold cuts, plus a few breads and salads. We’ll have prosciutto, mortadella, Genoa salami, provolone, fresh mozzarella, homemade focaccia, and other such goodies. I’ll probably get my mom to bring the pickled shrimp she makes, and maybe some homemade cheese dips or something. I was thinking probably a lighter white would be good with this kind of stuff, but really, no idea.
Christmas dinner–red meat is on the menu, probably roasted. Various sides that have not been decided on yet. Dessert will be petit fours and Christmas cookies, and we always have Asti with dessert so at least I’ve got that covered.
Thank you!!!
