Which Bordeaux wines to accompany your holiday meals?
Joyous wine and food matches
Starter
Nina suggests salmon and offers two options for the beginning of an ideal holiday meal:
- gravlax (marinated Swedish style), with a white Graves made predominantly with Sémillon,
- or smoked with a Crémant de Bordeaux.
Main course
This epicurean could not narrow her choice down to just one dish, so she indates three:
- Roast goose, with potatoes, sautéed Brussels sprouts, bacon, onions and caramelised carrots accompanied by a great red wine from Bordeaux’s Right Bank: Château d’Aiguilhe, Domaine de l’A, or Château Gaby.
- Roast turkey with a Saint-Émilion Grand Cru, a Côtes-de-Bourg, or a Blaye-Côtes-de-Bordeaux.
- or roast beef with a northern Médoc from a ripe vintage
Dessert
To end the meal, she suggests a sweet white wine, preferably a Sauternes. This can be enjoyed, as one prefers, with a mature cheese such as Stilton or a Christmas pudding.
Wine – a family passion
Nina’s love of wine is due in large part to her circle of friends and her family’s home in Italy. She grew up surrounded by vines from the time she was a small child.
In the following years, she her enthusiasm led her to visit vineyard regions around the world: Argentina, California, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of Europe.
However, she has always maintained a special relationship with Bordeaux, which developed further still when her father came to live in the region. She has visited regularly and come to appreciate Bordeaux’s dynamism and the complex work done by winegrowers there. So it was only natural that she should decide to become a tutor at the Bordeaux Wine School.
