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Holiday Wines: Which Should I Serve with Dinner?
copyright 2016 – Stephen Redgwell, for the International Wine Journal

With the holidaze fast approachin, it's time to talk wine. Not whine, like the politicians do.

As many of you know, Canada's premier wine publication, The International Wine Journal, always asks me to dispense some free advice to those of you who partake of the grape at Christmas. They must figure it will boost sales.

Anyway, this is a reprint of an article I wrote for them in 2016.
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When I'm servin' venison for the holidays, I always deliver it with a few bottles of wine. It's part of a rich huntin' tradition...or maybe not. I think that years ago, the rich got served wine to hide the gamey taste of wild meat.

Regardless, I would be remiss if I did not recommend a bottle of 'ye olde grape' right now. There's always room at the table for a savoury Bordello or fruity Chevrolet. It's funny, but the British call a Bordello a Clarinet. I've no idea why. They probably like music, and sing a lot when they're hammered.

White or red? It used to be that you served white with fish or fowl. Red was best with beef or lamb. But that was in the days when we had fewer spices and seasonin's for our food. Heck, we had fewer foods period.

For European peasants, it was gruel with water for breakfast, and gruel with water for lunch. If they got dinner, it was usually gruel with water, or a splash of goat's milk. And just so you know, gruel was usually made from oat, rye or wheat flour, which was ground up and mixed with water and made into a runny paste.

On special occasions, gruel and cider was served. That's just fermented fruit juice, made in a dirty bucket or cask, complete with insects and the odd, unfortunate mammal floatin' on the top. Usually, it was a drowned mouse or a vole.

The rich got venison, pheasant or quail, vegetables, and a key to the wine cellar.

The best rule of thumb is to drink whatever you like, regardless of what's served. Discrimination because of colour went out with President Johnson in the 1960s. Reds are no longer expected to sit in the back of the wine rack. If you like that odd taste of tannin, muckle onto a bottle of red and empty it. Glass optional.

While red wine has that funny, dry taste that some people don't like, the whites are usually sweeter. 'Sweet' bein' a relative term. It is an interpretation of what your taste buds like. What works for me may not be good for you. As a general rule, keep more whites in your rack for company, unless you're a vintner with a lot of grape savvy friends.

For the hoi polloi, sparklin' wines are always a treat. Rosey or Cave wines should be drank from a tumbler or straight from the box for the full effect. Plastic is the new glass. Just make sure your polymers are imported for that classy look.

For some reason, the Swiss don't like wine. They ferment a high acid wine that's called 'Gamey', which don't sound appealin'. It's also got a short shelf life. No doubt! I've never tried it, but I'm told that it's made to be drank quickly after bottlin'. I figure it must be made for winos.

Movin' on, you old Canadian hippies might remember those green, oval shaped bottles of Portuguese Matthews Rose - eh wine. They was the ones people put candles in and let the wax run over.

Besides Portuguese Matthews wine, there's also Portuguese Madonna wine. Madonna is the name of an island directly west of Morocco (that's in NW Africa), but is owned by the Portuguese. They produce tasty wine despite bein' surrounded by salt water.

What makes Madonna wine so good is it is produced the same way that Lady Madonna performs in her stage shows. The grapes (and the audience) are heated to 110 degrees and then allowed to cool slowly.

Regardless of which wine you drink, always remember to drink enough to get a buzz. You're carryin' on a historical tradition. Peasants and the lower classes always drank for effect, whenever they got near a cask. And of course, Robin Hood's merry men wouldn't have been so merry without it!

That seems about spot on. I like it.

Thanks.

This is for all the people who appreciate home decorating, and wine.