Your guide to matching feast food with Ballandean wine

Is your family feast modern or traditional? Matching your Christmas menu to divine wines is a pleasure. And to make it a make it a breeze, we’ve put together this easy food and wine matching guide. Let us inspire you with some Ballandean delights.

Starters

We like to keep it light and lovely with amuse bouche, fruit platters, smoked salmon blinis, arancini balls , antipasti and heaving platters of prawns. Getting our amici to mingle as they jingle is our aim, so finger food is ideal — give your guests a free hand to hold their drink! A glass of bubbles is a great way to start festivities. Try our Range Reserve Sparkling – it’s light, medium dry, with a delicate bead.

Seafood

What’s a fresh prawn without a squeeze of lemon? Citrus fruits are perfect with seafood, as the acidity offsets the richness of seafood and the sweetness complements delicate flavours.

Our Semillon Sauvignon Blanc marries well with fresh Queensland seafood—Moreton Bay Bugs, prawns, Hervey Bay Scallops, oysters and sand crabs. Look for citrus flavours, mouth-watering and energetic acidity.

For richer seafood such as baked salmon or barramundi, garlic prawns, oysters mornay you need a medium to full bodied wine—why not flirt with Fiano, Viognier, Chardonnay, or a chilled Rosé?

Baked glazed ham

Your porky centrepiece has three things to consider for a good wine match — the saltiness, the spice of the glaze and the fat content.

A sweet glaze needs a succulent fruit-driven wine to offset the saltiness of the ham. Rosé with its raspberry nuances works well, as does Fiano and Viognier.

What about red wine? Choose a fruit-driven red that’s light on the tannins — merlot, shiraz viognier or our sparkling shiraz!

Chicken

Our oaked Opera Block k Chardonnay is a match made in heaven with a simple roast chicken. If you have a slightly spicy stuffing or one with fruit like apricots in it, a rich white wine like Viognier or Fiano is a good choice. As for reds, Shiraz Viognier and Rosé are a lovely choice for chicken served with its own juices or with gravy.

Beef and Lamb

Our single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon’s ripe red fruits, tannic structure and herbaceous notes will make hearty beef and lamb roasts sing. If you are sizzling up some steak or lamb chops on the barbie, the tannins in our Opera Block Shiraz are a joy-filled complement— the berry and cassis aromas will make it sing.

Dessert

You can’t go past our Late Harvest Viognier to serve with Pavlova or traditional plum pudding think orange and apricot blossoms with a honeyed botrytis sweetness. If Mum’s making her marvellous mince pies, try our 15yo Blend Fine Old Tawny or Rum and Chocolate Port.

Cheese platter

Chardonnay loves soft creamy cheeses like brie and camembert. Bitey, hard mature cheeses work well with full-bodied whites and tannic reds. Whether you choose Chardonnay, luscious Viognier or juicy Shiraz Viognier you’ll find an easy harmony between the cheese and wine. When it comes to blue, go for gold! Sweet dessert wines and rich fortified wines make the perfect partner for pungent blue cheeses.