What Wine Goes with Christmas Dinner? My Guide to Christmas Wine Pairings

Smoked salmon, oysters, turkey, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce, figgy pudding, cheese. So many flavours. How on earth do you find one wine to pair with all that?

The short answer? You don't have to.

A few well-chosen bottles will see you through Christmas lunch, and choosing them should be part of the fun.

The best wines for Christmas dinner at a glance

These are starting points, not rules. The best pairing is often the one you most enjoy drinking.

Canapés and aperitifs: start with a pop

There's something about the pop of a cork that announces Christmas has properly begun.

Christmas might be the only day of the year when Champagne for breakfast, lunch and dinner seems entirely reasonable.

But here's an insider tip: Crémant.

Made using the same traditional method as Champagne, often from the same grape varieties, Crémant can offer exceptional quality without the Champagne price tag. It's one of those wines that people in the know have been enjoying for years.

Famille Gueguen Crémant de Bourgogne Blanc de Noirs is a lovely example. Made from Pinot Noir, it has the freshness to cut through rich canapés, smoked salmon blinis and creamy cheeses.

And it leaves a little more in the budget for Christmas dinner.

Starters: think about richness, not just ingredients

Christmas starters can be anything from pâté or terrine to smoked fish or a goat's cheese tart.

Rather than looking for a different bottle for every possible dish, think about its weight and richness.

A rich liver pâté benefits from a red wine with plenty of fruit and enough acidity to cut through the fat. Domaine Bel Avenir Juliénas Les Capitans, from Beaujolais, is a particularly good match.

For goat's cheese, I'd generally head towards Sauvignon Blanc. Its lively acidity works beautifully with the tang of the cheese, particularly in a tart or salad.

With a vegetable terrine, a dry rosé or a lighter red can be just as enjoyable.

You don't need three separate bottles for three different starters. Choose something versatile and let the food do the talking.

Oysters and seafood: sometimes the unexpected pairing is the best

My wife loves oysters, so they're a familiar part of our celebrations.

The conventional wisdom is to reach for Champagne, Muscadet or Picpoul de Pinet, and there's a good reason for that. Their freshness and acidity work beautifully with the salty, briny character of oysters.

But one of my most memorable pairings was oysters with Sauternes.

It sounds unlikely. A rich, sweet wine with something so distinctly savoury?

Yet when you think about it, the combination makes sense. The sweetness of the wine and the saltiness of the oysters play against each other, a delicious sort of yin and yang. The wine's acidity helps keep the whole thing fresh.

It's not necessarily the pairing I'd suggest to someone trying oysters for the first time, but it's a wonderful reminder that food and wine matching shouldn't be governed by rigid rules.

If you're curious, Château Les Mingets Sauternes is a good place to start, and the half-bottle format makes experimenting a little less extravagant.

For prawns and other seafood, I'd usually stick to a fresh, lively white wine. And if you're serving oysters with Champagne, I certainly won't argue.

Turkey, goose and duck: why I love Beaujolais at Christmas

Now for the main event.

The problem isn't the bird. It's everything else.

There's stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce, roast potatoes, sprouts, gravy and, of course, pigs in blankets. Each brings something different to the table.

You need a wine that can cope with all of that without overwhelming the food.

For me, it's Beaujolais all the way.

There's something wonderfully exuberant and fun about a really good Beaujolais, and that seems exactly right for Christmas. The meal is a celebration, after all, not a formal examination in food and wine matching.

Gamay, the grape behind Beaujolais, gives us bright fruit, refreshing acidity and generally gentle tannins. Those qualities make it remarkably versatile with turkey, goose, duck and all their accompanying trimmings.

I'm particularly fond of Domaine des Fournelles Côte de Brouilly Godefroy. It has lovely fruit, freshness and character, but there's also a seriousness beneath all that charm.

I've got a cheeky magnum of Godefroy, a gift from Domaine des Fournelles owner Guillaume Dumontet, waiting to be opened on Christmas Day.

I may even share it.

What if you prefer Pinot Noir?

Of course, not everyone shares my enthusiasm for Beaujolais, and Pinot Noir is another excellent choice.

It's popular for good reason. Its red-fruit character, gentle tannins and refreshing acidity make it one of the most accommodating red wines for Christmas lunch.

If you want something a little more restrained and elegant, I'd recommend Louis Père et Fils Bourgogne Pinot Noir Grande Réserve.

It's classic Burgundy: red fruit, finesse and enough freshness to sit comfortably alongside turkey and its accompaniments.

With goose or duck, both Beaujolais and Pinot Noir work particularly well because their acidity helps balance the richness of the meat.

The important thing is not to reach automatically for the biggest red in the cupboard. Christmas lunch has enough going on without a powerful, heavily tannic wine fighting for attention.

Prefer white wine with Christmas lunch?

There's absolutely no reason Christmas lunch has to be accompanied by red wine.

For white wine drinkers, I'd look for something with a little more texture and body than a crisp, lightweight Sauvignon Blanc.

A ripe, lightly oaked Chardonnay is hard to beat.

White Burgundy is the obvious place to look. It offers the richness to work with roast poultry, gravy and buttery potatoes, while retaining the acidity needed to keep everything in balance.

Florent Rouve Saint-Véran En Crêches has the combination of fruit, texture and freshness I want from white Burgundy.

It's a particularly useful choice if you're serving turkey but would rather not open a red.

Roast beef: time for something with more structure

Not everyone has turkey at Christmas. If roast beef is your centrepiece, you can afford to choose something with a little more weight.

Beef works well with structured reds because the protein and fat help soften the impression of tannin.

Bordeaux is an obvious option, but I'd also look to the south of France.

Abbaye de Valmagne Cardinal de Bonzi, from the Languedoc, has the depth and character to stand up to roast beef and a rich gravy.

It's the sort of wine that feels entirely at home at a celebratory table.

Christmas pudding: don't forget the wine

Christmas lunch, to my mind, isn't complete without a flaming, fruit-packed, boozy Christmas pudding.

But it's worth remembering one of the most useful rules in food and wine pairing: the wine should generally be at least as sweet as the dessert.

Otherwise, even a perfectly good dry wine can taste thin, sharp or rather joyless alongside something sugary.

With Christmas pudding, I love the dried-fruit and caramel character of Tawny Port. Tokaji Aszú is another excellent option, bringing sweetness, acidity and complexity to the pairing.

Chocolate desserts call for something different again, while panettone is lovely with a fragrant Italian sweet wine.

I've explored those combinations in more detail in my guide to the best dessert wines for Christmas.

Cheese: one last glass?

By the time the cheeseboard appears, there's a reasonable chance everyone has had quite enough to eat.

But there's usually room for one more glass.

Port and Stilton is a classic pairing for good reason. The sweetness of the Port provides a lovely contrast to the cheese's salty, powerful flavour.

With a proper mature Cheddar, the stuff from Somerset, I'd be tempted by a characterful red. Domaine des Amphores Les Iris Syrah has the fruit and structure to work with a robust cheese.

For Brie or Camembert, consider a white wine with some texture rather than assuming red is always the answer.

And don't feel obliged to open something new just because the cheese has arrived. If you've still got a good glass of Burgundy or Beaujolais in front of you, you may find it does the job perfectly well.

My final advice for Christmas wine

If I were choosing wines for Christmas Day, I'd keep things relatively simple.

Start with something sparkling, open a good white for anyone who prefers it, and make sure there's a really enjoyable red for the main course. Add a sweet wine or Port for pudding and cheese, and you're well covered.

I'd probably choose Beaujolais for the main event, but you knew that already.

The point isn't to assemble a different bottle for every dish or to follow a complicated set of rules. It's to choose wines you enjoy, understand a little about why they work with the food, and share them with people whose company you enjoy.

Although, depending on how good that magnum turns out to be, the sharing part might be negotiable.

For specific bottles, see my eight wines for Christmas lunch. For pudding and cheese, there's also a Christmas dessert wine guide.

Merry Christmas!