Fill your festive table with cheer with these three exceptional bottles
With a heavily laden table, drink choices have to be adaptable, crowd-pleasing and just a little bit decadent. And they have to be good. It’s Christmas after all.
Christmas means different things to different people. To many it means nothing at all. To me it means a slide, appropriately enough, into the goose fat days of high summer. Come Christmas time, procuring some of the fat that helps a goose float is a priority that outweighs getting presents for the kids. While olive oil is more than capable of roasting my potatoes at any other time, there is an expectation that festive spuds will be crisped by a fat rendered, not pressed. Such are the quirks of Christmas.
We all do strange things around this time of year – the logic and reason applied to the other 51 weeks dissolves during this one. In my family those quirks manifest themselves not in the way we show our love through gifts, or how we choose to celebrate the spiritual side of this special time. It’s pretty much all about how we stuff our faces and lubricate our throats.
Managing oven space when you’re required to roast the population of a kid’s petting zoo is a logistical conundrum that seems to get harder every year. Fridge space is equally precious, especially when I insist on two hams each year – one for glazing on Christmas Day, and the other kept pristine because that’s how it has to be for the mountain of sandwiches that need to be made in readiness for the first ball of the Boxing Day Test. It’s why I need to take a trailer to the servo to get enough ice to fill the flotilla of eskies pressed into service once the drinks fridge in the shed is commandeered to house the 40 litres of stock I’ve been making all week just to get a head-start on the gravy. There’s none of that Paul Kelly rubbish here.
With a heavily laden table, drink choices have to be adaptable, crowd-pleasing and just a little bit decadent. And they have to be good. It’s Christmas after all. If there’s ever a time to treat yourself, it’s now. You’ve earned it. And if your family is anything like mine, you’ll need it.
PERRIER JOUET BLANC DE BLANCS NV
$150
Despite Champagne prices rapidly rising in recent years, there is still a argument to make that Christmas just isn’t Christmas without our lips being kissed by effervescent French fizz. This invigoratingly fresh cuvee, with aromatics of grapefruit pith, white flowers and the baker’s oven, is a fine option. 12% alcohol, 94 points
JOSEPH SPARKLING RED NV
$100
This is the apogee of Australia’s most idiosyncratic wine style: nobody other than us puts bubbles into big, rich, complex red wines, and Joe Grilli has long been acknowledged as the master of the fizzy dark arts. Fruit mince pies and old leather, dark chocolate and decadent spice. A glorious weirdo of the wine world. 13.5% alcohol, 96 points
HM SEVEN SPICE CHAI GIN
$70
Colder climes celebrate Christmas with spicy mulled wine or eggnog. Here you get the same sensation in a form far more appropriate for summer. A stunning deployment of distilling skill, it hums with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, and is softened and made creamy by the addition of honey. Pour a slug over ice, top with ginger beer and ride the spicy wave. 43% alcohol, 95 points