Throughout the twelfth month all the wines we pour By-The-Glass will be from our Christmas wine list and every day we’re offering a Christmas wine tasting experience: you don’t even need to buy a ticket – just book a table and arrive thirsty.
If your friends and family can’t make it down, you can put a little bit of KASK underneath the tree with a cracking Christmas wine gift box that they definitely won’t regift, or one of our perfect Christmas wine cases, keep on reading for more info.
Or if you’ve forgotten to book somewhere for your office party and need a Christmas fairy to wave their wand and save you from a red face, we just may be able to help. We can also host a corporate wine tasting at your office or another venue – just email us and we can tailor an experience to your budget: hey@kaskwine.co.uk
Give them something they’ll actually be thankful for. Last year, The Independent named our Christmas Wine Tasting Kits in their list of best gifts for wine lovers t! 5 100ml glasses of wine, each perfect for a different time on Christmas Day, presented in one of our At-Home Wine Tasting kits with tasting notes and interesting (honest!) facts about the winemakers included.
Or if you’re looking for 3 or 6 full bottles, our range of Christmas wine cases also include tasting notes, information about the winemaker + the grape, and suggested food pairings. All wines are of course vegan, organic and, most importantly, absolute corkers.
All are available for collection from KASK or for UK delivery. But if you want to choose your own selection of wines, here’s some handy tips for what makes a great wine selection throughout Christmas….
If you’re anything like us, Christmas Day is about eating and drinking, from the first chocolate that comes out of the stocking, to the last tired spoon of brandy butter your fatigued mouth sneaks in during a late night trip to the fridge. Throughout the day your tongue is abused with a smorgasbord of flavours, and your stomach becomes a whirligig of consumption.
All of these competing tastes make it very hard to pick a wine to match. The answer is there isn’t one wine that’s going to work. So that’s where we come in.
Time to get the party started. For something a little different we love Testalonga’s I Wish I Was A Ninja a Pet Nat from Swartland in South Africa. Fairly low in alcohol, it’s slightly sweet and has one hell of an eye-catching label. What’s a Pet Nat? Short for the French term ‘Pétillant Natural’, it’s a sparkling wine made by bottling the wine before fermentation is complete. This usually results in a softly sparkling wine (carbon dioxide is a byproduct of fermentation, and is trapped in the bottle), often slightly sweet (not all the sugar converts to alcohol), and usually lower alcohol (usually anything from 8.5% to 11%).
Everyone has their own Christmas Eve traditions. Ours is to get up early and get a Beef Bourguignon into the oven so it slow cooks over eight hours. When it’s ready, we serve it over Chip Shop chips (who needs the hassle of mashing a load of potatoes on Christmas Eve?) To pair with this, we’ll have two glasses. One will be a fizz (an insanely good wine + food pairing is sparkling wine and chips), and the other will be a red wine to go with the Beef. This year we’ll be pushing the boat out with a bottle of Ancre Hill’s Blanc de Noirs, Wales’ alternative to Champagne, but a great value alternative is Col del Lupo’s Prosecco Superiore Extra Dry – we don’t have much Prosecco on our shelves so you know that when we do, it’s a corker.
For the red, the perfect pairing with Beef Bourguignon is Pinot Noir (we use 2 bottles in the casserole itself) but this year we’ll be pouring Pia Strehn’s Wunderland: made with rare Austrian grape Roesler this has a similar light to medium bodied profile as Pinot Noir, and also shares Pinot’s notes of violet, red fruits and hints of spice.
After a cup of tea and opening our stockings, it’s time for breakfast. Have a long enough lie in (we don’t have kids), and you can time breakfast late enough that there’s no shame in having your scrambled eggs and smoked salmon with a glass of fizz. You don’t want to go too big too early, which is where Pet Nat’s come in – or what we call Breakfast Wine (below 10% abv)
Roc Ambulle is a pink Pet Nat and only 9.5% abv. It’s lovely red fruit + citrus flavours make it a great pre-midday drink and an alternative to a Bellini or Mimosa.
For Aperitifs
You’re going to want something fresh to reset your palate after the Chocolate Orange and/or box of Quality Street. If you’re having seafood we’d usually recommend a Muscadet, but this year we’re not looking further than Alvear 3 Mirador’s Vindo de Pueblo ’21. This blew our mind when we discovered it at a Trade Tasting in London in October. From Andalucia in Spain, it’s made from the Pedro Ximenez grape, which usually produces a sickly-sweet and very sticky dessert wine. But while this wine smells of sweet sherry, it is super fresh with mineral notes of apple and peach stone, and just a hint of honey on the finish.
Let’s face it, Turkey can be pretty bland. But a good wine can help with that. A classic pairing would be a Chenin Blanc like this South African delight by Dorper, with its crunchy green apple note and just a hint of butteriness from its aging in old oak. Or if you want to be a little adventurous and have a real talking point at the table, go for one of our favourite wines of the year, Mas d’en Blei’s Clos Martina. This is made in Priorat, a Spanish region known for its reds, and is rich with notes of dried fruit, flint, toast and – here’s the talking point – smoked bacon.
For a red we always like to drink the last of this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau (pure cherry juice) or a Pinot Noir. But this time we’ll be opening Maison Ventenac’s La Paria, a Grenache from the south of France, made in a light and juicy style that’s been one of our customers’ favourites at our restaurant Kitchen by KASK.
Or Forget the Turkey
And focus on the other flavours from your veg to cranberry sauce and of course the gravy. To pair with all those competing flavours we like something a bit sweeter – this German Pinot Blanc is perfect, or for something slightly dryer but with aromatic hits of apricot, apples and sweet spice, Garghi by Pialli is a KASK favourite.
Or go for a Fizz. Funky Mavrud by Georgiev & Milkov is one of a range of amazing value and very good Bulgarian wine we’ve been enjoying this year. Lightly sparkling, with notes of raspberries, strawberries and herbs, this will be a great way of celebrating with friends and family this year.
We normally take a break after the main course, get the washing up sorted, then move on to the dessert (it means we can flop – or crawl – straight to the couch after). So here’s our wine plan for the afternoon
With the Cheeseboard
We go big on cheese at Christmas and we like to have different wines to pair with different cheeses. For a White wine, we love the Sauvignon Blanc from Domaine Bablut, or for a Red this Mavrud Reserve, another one of Bulgarian wines. Or to baffle your parents, go for an Orange wine. Fantastic with a cheese plate, bringing different flavours to the fore, Orange wines are a lovely little surprise for those who haven’t had one before. This Friulano from Ferlat in the Italian region of Friuli has loads about it but isn’t too strange for orange virgins.
For The Nap On The Sofa
Food, done. Now it’s time for the sofa, a movie, and a nap. For this we love a big Red to keep us company. This Primitivo is one of our fav Italian red wines: rich, intense + full bodied packed full of boozy fruit, it will take you all the way through.
For a special reward at some point before New Year
Once you’ve turfed out the in-laws, tidied up the mountains of wrapping paper, and boiled down the Turkey carcass, you deserve a treat. Last year’s big hitter was Ombre d’Ambre by Pialli, an elegant skin-contact wine from Veneto in Italy. It’s dry, medium bodied and with bags of complexity – one to be savoured and not shared. This year, if you’re going to go all out on an exy but oh so sexy treat and you’re in the mood for something a bit wild and wacky, go for the La Traversee from Kumof et Meyer in the Alsace, France. Slightly spritz, this is natty, gorgeous and very different with mind-boggling notes of apple, saffron, ginger and…bacon frazzles. Just don’t expect Great Aunt Maud to like it.
