Team db reveals its top Christmas tipples

 As Christmas approaches, we take a look at what the drinks business team will be drinking on the big day, with our choice serves proving diverse.

Forget your everyday Chardonnay or bog-standard Beaujolais – Christmas is the time to push the boat out when it comes to drinking. Whether that’s a fine wine, obscure novelty or newly discovered single malt, it’s a time to mix things up and spoil friends and family.

While whisky and Sherry are perennial Christmas favourites, sparkling wines including Champagne and Prosecco are never far behind. However this year white, rather than red, wines are expected to be the UK’s most popular tipple with Sauvignon Blanc topping the charts as the most popular variety, according to pre-Christmas sales data analysed by Laithwaite’s Wine.

With this in mind, here is a rundown of what the drinks business team is planning to drink this festive season.

Patrick Schmitt MW, editor-in-chief

Trevallon 1999 for the adults, and, below, Badoit for the children

Unusually we’re actually hosting Christmas this year, which gives me the opportunity to dictate the day’s drinking, taking into account my guest’s tastes of course, which are varied.

For my daughters, Bea, aged 8, and Ottilie, who is just 22 months, there will be plenty of Badoit – they both love this sparkling water, although Bea will no doubt sneak a sip of the other fizzy drink I’m planning for Christmas day: Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires 1995, which was generously given to me by my chairman, and, in my view at least, is the best Champagne on the market at the moment.

The Blanc des Millénaires should also sate the needs of my mother-in-law, who drinks only Champagne – and in minute quantities – while my father-in-law, who likes to stick to just white wine, will be supplied with a 2010 vintage of Montlouis ‘Les Bournais’ from Francois Chidaine, which I’ve chosen both because he likes oily Loire Valley Chenin, but also to go with our warm-up dish of Jerusalem artichoke soup.

For the goose (we’re ditching the turkey for 2015), I’m going to try a 1999 vintage of Domaine de Trévallon, which, again, was kindly supplied by my chairman, who bought the last three bottles from Corney & Barrow just in time for Christmas, following advice from Régis Franc, French cartoonist and producer of the Languedoc’s Chante Cocotte. (Over an excellent lunch at Portland last week, Régis said that the red from Trévallon – a blend of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon – would be his desert island drink).

Judging by the dreadful label, which prominently states “red table wine”, I’m hopeful of Trévallon’s quality – poor packaging is often a sign of great wine.

Should this disappoint however, I have a back up plan in the form of 2001 Ribera del Duero from Bodegas Aalto, the first vintage ever produced of this delicious wine from former Vega Sicilia winemaker, Mariano García. We’ll probably drink this anyway.

What next? Ideally, it would be a shot of mouth-cleansing sweetness courtesy of Tokaji-maker Disznóko, whose single vineyard Kapi from 2011 is one of the most remarkable and wonderful stickies I’ve ever drunk, but, sadly, almost impossible to find in the market.

To please my wife however, we’ll probably move straight into the palate-bashing experience that is PX (Pedro Ximénez), with the Noe 30 Year Old from Gonzalez Byass. This should also complement the Christmas pudding, which was soaked in the stuff – a tip from Nigella.

I’m then going to indulge my tastes, and finish with Madeira – a 20 year-old Malvasia from Barbeito, which should, no doubt, ensure a sleep deep enough to digest this extravagant mix.

Darren Smith, sub editor and staff writer

I’m highly likely to start with a light cocktail for breakfast, using one of my discoveries of the year, Adie Badenhorst’s Caperitif, an amazing, unputdownable vermouth-style wine, poured over ice and mixed with Adie’s own mint and cardamom infused tonic water. I will return to this drink at regular intervals throughout the day, whenever flagging spirits demand. Around midday guests will be arriving and so I’m thinking Champagne, most likely Lilbert Fils Blanc de Blancs from my good friends at The Sampler, will go with homemade cheese straws. Christmas lunch starts with gravadlax, with either Les Folatieres Puligny Montrachet or Hamilton Russell Chardonnay (depending on who of myself and my South African girlfriend wins the debate).

The main event will be roast goose and we’ll have a selection of red options to go with that: Duncan Savage’s stunning Burgundy-style red blend, which I’ll try and fail to remember to decant first, and a couple of clarets – whatever mature Pomerol or St Emilion is left on my last-minute dash to the wine shop, and a Amiral de Beychevelle we have at home already. That leaves pudding, which is a chocolate and hazelnut parfait. I haven’t decided what we’ll have with that, although I might gamble on some obscure Cypriot sweet wine that’s been sitting in the cupboard for ages. Then there’ll be Fernando de Castilla palo cortado Sherry and a cheese board of immense proportions. Oh and rum. I’ll be removing any suggestion of sobriety from the latter stages of Christmas Day by regularly topping up on Zacapa Sistema Solera 23 Rum.

Cin cin and a merry Christmas.

Lauren Eads, deputy editor

As is tradition, I will be kicking off this year’s festivities with a glass of fizz on Christmas Eve. While Champagne has long ruled the roost, this year I will be cracking open a bottle of English sparkling wine, possibly a bottle of Nyetimber’s 2010 classic cuvée or the 2010 Blanc De Noirs from Furleigh Estate in Dorset, which is incidentally where I will be spending Christmas.

On the big day I plan to expand my Christmas drinks repertoire beyond wine with a few cocktails – Amaretto sours to be specific – a sweet and sour serve that I have long ordered in bars but am yet to recreate at home. Gin and tonics are likely to feature at some point in the day, a reliable staple, this year courtesy of Gin Mare – a Spanish twist on a British classic.

For the turkey feast a bottle of Trapiche Terroir Series 2011 Malbec has been waiting patiently in my wine rack. Other wines likely to make an appearance include a bottle of 2014 Rioja Blanco from Bodegas Muga and a rather funky bottle of Bobal from Spanish producer Vox Populi.

The evening is likely to round off with a glass of Gonzalez Byass’ Cuatro Palmas Sherry, along with a slither of Manchego cheese if we are lucky, rounding off what looks, on reflection, to be a very Spanish Christmas.

Anthony Hawser, chairman

I’ll be starting with a glass of Champagne, something good but not great as I’ll be sipping it along with cooking the dinner – my only time in the year with chaos all around.

Then we will be drinking a great claret – maybe a Pontet Canet 2009 or a Ducru Beaucaillou 2005. This will be followed with a Sauternes – a Climens 2001. These Sauternes are such great wines and overwhelming value.

Chloé Beral, events and marketing manager

We’re having our Christmas dinner on the evening of the 24^th. We always start with Champagne for the canapés, I am taking a bottle of Charles Heidsieck NV and my uncle will bring some Bollinger.

Even though I know you should keep sweet for dessert, we always have foie gras as a  starter and will be drinking Sauternes with it and I am bringing a Vidal ice wine from Finger Lakes as well.

We are making scallops as main course this year and will be pairing it with a white Burgundy – probably a Chablis premier cru.

We usually have Saint Emilion with the cheese platter, it goes really well with Saint-Nectaire and Camembert. Probably Rollan de By as my parents stayed there a few months ago.

For dessert we’ll pair the fruit salad with a demi-sec Champagne .

Rupert Millar, fine wine editor

Champagne, claret, Port – Christmas drinking in the Millar household does tend to err on the right-of-Ghengis-Khan side of tradition.

And while I’d love to say that things were going to be shaken up this year and the groaning feasting table was set to be adorned with something bright and esoteric like Sonoma Pinot Noir, Okanagan Gamay or Adelaide Hills Chardonnay – it won’t be.

I have a bottle of Taittinger ‘Prélude’ to offer up, as well as any scraps from the mish-mash of cases I keep in the cloakroom at my parents’ home.

I do have two bottles of Gimblett Gravel Syrah on the other hand so perhaps there will indeed be room for a bit of a vinous shake-up this yuletide after all – though it may have to wait until Boxing Day.