Christmas Wine Strategy

What do you mean you don't have one?

Christmas in a bottle by Fortnums

One of my early jobs in wine was at Bottle Apostle, an independent wine shop in Victoria Park, Hackney (they now have other branches in some of London’s loveliest neighbourhoods - Crouch End, Clapham and Primrose Hill) and as you might imagine we were heaving on the 23rd and 24th December, often having to stay open later than advertised to serve desperate customers who had - incredibly - forgotten to buy their Christmas wine.

How people forget to buy wine at any time of the year is beyond me but then I think about wine for a disproportionate amount of time and it holds, some might say, a disproportionate amount of importance in my life. I try to take this into account whenever I feel baffled by normal people’s behaviour, such as leaving wine shopping to the last minute, but baffled I remain. Considering the mad scramble for Ocado/Waitrose/M&S delivery slots from September onwards it really doesn’t make sense.

I imagine most people don’t want to face quite how much wine they will consume, not to mention how much it will cost, so buying in bulk is simply too traumatic. Panic buying on the 24th, followed by a top up on the 27th from wherever is open, enables their head to remain firmly in the sand.

Well, I’m here to yank your head out of the sand right now and, given how busy December is, help you form your Christmas Wine Strategy like a pro, in November. As soon as the embers of Bonfire Night have died, there is simply no excuse to not concentrate on Christmas.

The term ‘wine strategy’ is common parlance amongst wine people. Having a wine strategy, planning a wine strategy and, of course, talking about your wine strategy. It will sound somewhere between pompous and mental to normal people but trust me, once you’ve formed - and benefitted from - a wine strategy there is no going back. You will be better for it and the spotlight on your former amateurism will have never shone more brightly.

A bit of forward planning keeps costs down, quality up and most importantly, your nerves steady. You will be prepared for anything and above all you will not ruin Christmas by running out of wine.

This is what you need, adjust quantities to suit your numbers.

Party Wine

Even if you’re not throwing a party, you will likely be invited to a party. Party Wine is cheap and middle of the road in flavour. Red and white wine that tastes of what most people think red and wine tastes of. Cotes du Rhone or anything from the Languedoc, Rioja, maybe a Chianti or something soft, juicy and Sicilian. If you insist on New World go for South African. For health and safety, you might want to consider something slightly lighter and more sessionable - Beaujolais or an unoaked Joven (young) Rioja perhaps.

Whites are an easier field, not least because even if it’s a bit crap you can serve it really, really cold and it will taste less crap. Avoid Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling as they’re too distinctive and divisive. Party Wine is the people pleaser of the wine world, only less annoying than actual people pleasers. Picpoul is usually the answer in this situation. Quality to value ratio is high, and it’s pretty hard to find one that’s not at the very least acceptable (and some are really quite thirst-quenchingly good).

Unless there’s some deal on, just accept that you need to spend at least £10, but there’s no need to spend more than £15 (unless you want to). If you are hosting, there’s no shame in a box wine - fewer bottles to open and recycle, and guests can serve themselves. Win-win. St John, Bobo and Laylo are make great box wines. More Wine is a great website to buy lots of different boxes in one fell swoop.

Random Present Wine

I’m talking about the bottles you gift as a seasonal gesture, slightly out of obligation. Not the proper presents for the proper people in your life. Your neighbours, teachers at school, your therapist (although if you’ve had a particularly challenging year they may deserve something a bit better), hair stylist, babysitter etc. Follow the advice above for Party Wine but select the bottles with the nicest labels. And don’t gift a supermarket own label.

House Wine

Restaurants have House Wine, and so should your house. In a restaurant House Wine is a people pleaser (see above) but in your house the good news is you only have to please yourself.

In practical terms, an adequate supply of house wine will stop you from opening all the nice wine on the 23rd, leaving you with nothing decent to drink on the big day. It’s a protector of the posh stuff. It also comes into its own when you’re a few bottles in, your palette no longer cares and you have most definitely transitioned from ‘appreciative drinking’ to ‘drinking drinking’.

Always drink your best wine first then work your way down.

The rule in my house is wines over £20 are not House Wine, in the sense that I don’t open them willy-nilly. Unless of course I don’t have any House Wine, in which case more posh wine is invariably plundered and once again you’ve done the wine equivalent of shitting on your own doorstep.

I can’t stress this enough: Always have House Wine in. By which I mean if you’re down to your last three bottles, order more.

Celebration Wine

We’re talking fizz. A good cremant (which you can get for around £12-20) is absolutely fine for general popping. Your house fizz, if you will. If you want to spend more on Champagne or English Sparkling please do but this sort of comes down to budget. 6-8 bottles of cremant and maybe 3-4 posher stuff should see you through the festive fortnight (if you’re entertaining the masses scale up). Unless you have money to burn no-one, not even wine people, really cares about having super posh fizz if they’re just knocking it back at a party (see also: weddings) - don’t waste precious pounds on party poppers.

There’s some great value cremant options in my piece on the Booths tasting, also their v.good own label Champers is available on Amazon.

I will probably drink some grower Champagne that no longer exists to buy, but if you want to venture into Grower Champagne take a deep dive via Vine Trail, grab a bottle of Stephane Regnault or Piollet from Uncharted or go to your local wine shop - The Good Wine Shop in West London and The Sampler in Islington have plenty.

English Sparking - a few favourites that spring to mind are Domaine Hugo, Langham, Westwell and Sugrue.

Seasonal Wine

The wine most people only buy at Christmas. Namely, fortified: Sherry, Port, Madeira. The wine industry bores on about how everyone should drink fortified wine all year round and whilst I sort of agree, I also want to scream back “but they obviously just don’t want to!!!”, because that is the truth of the matter.

There’s also something rather fun about having wines that only come out once a year (obviously not to the agreement of the Sherry/Port/Madeira industries). Everyone’s feeling a bit fuck it, and even the most abstemious start justifying a little 19% snifter to see off their mid-morning mince pie.

The best thing about fortified wines is that they’re really quite cheap, and - going out on a limb here - the quality spectrum is narrower than with regular wines. Get a Fino for freshness (those olives and crisps won’t wash themselves down) and a Medium Dry Oloroso (the Waitrose Blueprint one is absolutely fine) for more Christmassy Sherry vibes. Bring on the mixed nuts and cheese board.

Madeira is not only delicious but also invincible. Don’t worry about opening it and not finishing it because it doesn’t go off. Ever. Ranging in sweetness from Sercial (dry) to Malmsey/Malvasia (sweet) but not off puttingly so, there’s texture and acidity, it’s not remotely syrupy. I’ve literally just opened a bottle of the one in the picture above from Fortnums and just like every time I drink Madeira all I can think is “why don’t I drink more Madeira?”. It is so damn good. £19.50 for 37.5cl. If I don’t get back to you in December it’s because I’m drinking this. God, I love Fortnums.

And of course Port. A bottle of tawny and a bottle of LBV (Late Bottled Vintage) will do the job. If I was only to buy one it would always be Tawny, as you get complexity and age for same money and it’s just so easy to drink at any time of the day. You can read more about how much I love Port in my other guide to Drinking Wine at Christmas which will have it’s annual re-publish very soon.

Nice Wine

Of course you need some ‘nice wine’, for Christmas Eve and Day and Boxing Day. Unless you’re hosting a huge number of people, 6-8 nice bottles of whatever you consider to be nice wine should be enough, not least because you have all of the above to pad things out.

A magnum never goes amiss when a bit of pizazz is required, and if there’s four or more at the table it means everyone gets a good go on it. As much as it’s lovely to have a few different wines throughout a meal, you don’t want to only get half a glass before moving on. I don’t like wine pairings in restaurants for this reason. You get too many wines you don’t like and not enough of the two you do.

‘Nice Wine’ for me is generally over £20-25 a bottle (obviously I’m using nice to mean smart or posh, before anyone starts furiously commenting that wines under £20 can be nice too - I know they can - most of the wine I drink is under £20, how rich do you think I am?).

I haven’t yet decided but my whites will likely be Loire Chenin, Chablis and Riesling, or something racy and refined from northern Spain, or soft and complex from the Rhone. Reds will be equally predictable: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone and Nebbiolo from Piedmont. Preferences that are so unremarkable I’m wondering why I’m even bothering to tell you.

The Damage

I’ve worked it out so you don’t have to. Using the rough prices and quantities above this lot comes to just shy of a grand. Ouch? Or as expected? Let me know in the comments.

Either way, you have your first (adjustable) Wine Strategy in the bag - congratulations! And there are no excuses whatsoever to be that flustering mess in the wine shop at 5.55pm on Christmas Eve.