Christmas tips for winos

Thursday, December 19th, 2013

Christmas is here. It is a daunting time of year. Money pours out of bank accounts faster than Sauvignon Blanc at a book club as food, wine, more food, more wine, fancy food, a little more wine just in case, and then a few special bottles – because it’s Christmas – are bought.

Couple that with aunts, uncles, cousins, children, in-laws and the occasional outlaw; gifts, decorated foliage, inevitable faux pas, and the even more inevitable hangover, Christmas can easily become a tad stressful.

All of this culminates on Christmas day. That landmine field of awkward family moments, socks masquerading as presents, turkey that’s somehow allowed to be served outside a sandwich, and that sexist/bigoted uncle.

Here are a few tips for wine lovers to help you make it through this intoxicating, and sometimes infuriating time of year.

Making It About Wine

This isn’t always easy. Not everyone in the family is going to buy the idea that Christmas isn’t really about Christ’s birth but rather a celebration of his first miracle. Or that Father Christmas would far prefer a glass of tawny (the rest of the bottle cannot go to waste) and a plate of cheese and nuts than silly old milk and cookies. Even so, Christmas is the perfect holiday to get your significant other to overlook your more excessive wine purchases.

If you are questioned as to why you think it is a good idea to spend a grand on a bottle or two of wine, the simple answer works best. Look up, smile sweetly and say: “It’s Christmas.”

Explain that warmth, good cheer, and love for all mankind increases in direct proportion to the quantity and quality of fine wine present. If you find further resistance, reiterate the tale about the first miracle.

Presents

This may seem obvious but you need to do a bit of groundwork here. Because your whole family knows you’re a wine nut, the chance of receiving 22 novelty cork screws, a million horrid glass bottle stops, or any product with a bunch of grapes or some facile wine cartoon printed on them is very high. Relatives find it difficult to understand that we like wine, not any flotsam and jetsam that has a picture of grapes printed on it.

Start a wedding-like registry with your local wine retailer, and distribute the list to your friends and family. Wines, glassware, and wine books can be added to this list. Sit back on Christmas morning and watch your cellar grow.

Christmas Dinner Politics

I don’t mean dealing with the racist uncle, flatulent aunt, or that incredibly needy cousin, but rather navigating the table as a known wino.

We all know what this means.

“Harry dear, tell us what you think of this bottle [R30 bottle of plonk], we’ve been saving it specially.”

The sudden migration of empty glasses to your end of the table as soon as you open something good.

“Dear Chap what’s that you’ve opened?”

We know it, and we take it on the chin. We are a loving bunch, us winos, and are happy to distribute the wines we bring along generously because we are mostly vinous evangelicals wanting the whole world to drink better wine. However, there is always the one uncle, aunt, or cousin who crosses the line.

As if on cue – because in their opinion wine shouldn’t cost more than R25 – they will bustle in with a few glasses already poured and ask you to taste and rate these wines blind. You do your duty, and say the wines are drinkable or not, before the irksome relation will whip out the bottles crowing about how a mate of theirs gets it for R14.50 a bottle, and even the ‘wine expert’ likes them. And then spend the rest of the meal laughing at you for any wine you have purchased that cost more than R14.50

It is a cross we must all bear.

For the dinner table I would suggest bringing a bunch of unlabeled wine, and spinning a tale about its incredible terroir, nuance, and depth of flavour. Make it a secret as to who made it. Tell the uncle you bought it for R20 a bottle. You will be left in peace, I promise.

Catering

By taking advantage of the Christmas cheer you will be able to drink wine from sunup to sundown with hardly an arched eyebrow in sight.

The trick here is to make sure the first wine you open is so undeniably delicious, that even the most hardened “but it’s only 10 am” will join in. I have found the best wine for this is a cheeky, off-dry Mosel Riesling. I have yet to find a person that does not start eying the bottle after a single sip. And once that first cork is popped, well, HO HO HO and all that.

And Finally

Christmas is the time of uninhibited excess. Whether you think this is a good thing or not is irrelevant, but let’s all agree to stay out of our cars after imbibing a Father Christmas sack-full of wine this year. The indignity of waking up in your uncles’ house, naked, under the Christmas tree, is far better than not waking up at all.

– Harry Haddon