Wine can be the perfect finishing touch to your Easter meal
Easter is one of the easiest holidays for wine pairings because there's something on the menu for everyone.
If you're a fan of spring lamb, choose a rich red, with firm tannin and herbal accents to enhance the herb seasoning in many lamb recipes.
The red wines of Spain combine herb, earth and dark berry complexity, along with the seemingly contradictory elements of silky texture and firm tannin. Producers including Marques de Caceres, Martinez Bujanda Conde de Valdema, Alejandro Fernandez Tinto de Pesquera and Faustino release wines in various styles: crianza is young and fruit-forward with plump mouthfeel ($14 to $20-ish); reserva wines offer power and complexity developed from extended maturation in barrel and bottle ($20 to $30); gran reserva receives the most maturation, for ethereal flavors and attenuated, silky texture ($20 on up.)
Your recipe for ham will also guide your wine choice. Brine-cured "city ham" is generally prepared with sweet glaze to balance the ham's salty/smoky flavors. A sweeter or very fruity wine -- like Riesling -- echoes glaze flavors, such as apricot, honey and even sweet-spicy barbecue.
For statuesque, complex Riesling, turn to the world's great Riesling regions of France, Austria and Germany.
The driest and most powerful Rieslings hail from France's Alsace region. Grown in mountainous terraces, with ample sunshine and little rain, the wines are concentrated and dry, with firm mineral flavor and rich alcohol. Top producers include Weinbach, Hugel and Trimbach with prices beginning in the mid-$20s.
Austria decreases alcohol and minerality and adds lush stone fruit. Look for producers including Brundlmayer and Freie Weingartner, also mid-20s.
Germany decreases alcohol again, substituting crystalline delicacy and vibrant fruit. Clean Slate is a great value with lip-smacking, off-dry flavor, about $12. For more complexity, ask your merchant for an estate-bottled wine like Bassermann-Jordan or Balthasar Ress, beginning about $15.
For quality and affordability, turn to Chateau Ste. Michelle, the U.S. Riesling specialist, for widely-available and top-rated bottles priced at about $10.
If you turn up your nose at pink wine, Easter is the time to re-direct that schnoz into a glass of well-made rose.
Rose and ham satisfies everyone's wine and food guidelines. For culinarians, there's enough fruit to balance ham's salt and smoke. For the forgetful there's color-coding: red wine with red meat, white with white and pink wine with ham.
Anthropologists will find the logic of pairing ham with pork-loving regions such as Spain, southern France and Argentina. For those of us who just want to kick back with a good drink, rose offers a power approaching red wine with the refreshment of white.
From Spain, Julian Chivite's Gran Fuedo Rosato ($12) is in-between dry and sweet, with an ample mouthful of red fruit flavors balanced by bright acidity. France's Domaine Nizas Rose ($16) is rich and dry with exciting fruit, mineral flavors and firm finish. For an Argentine recommendation, see Ross' Choice.
Die hard red wine drinkers should avoid the rich reds, which will feel hard against ham's salt and taste bitter against sweet glaze. Select instead a Spanish crianza or a French Beaujolais-Villages (including Louis Jadot, about $14.)
If you're brunch is on the schedule, choose any of the wines listed above (rich reds excepted) for delicious crowd-pleasers that can pair with the widest variety of food.
For a festive eye-opener, add an off-dry sparkler (such as France's Ste. Hilaire, about $12), with some cherry or pomegranate juice on hand for those with a sweet tooth.
Ross' choice
Crios Rose of Malbec
2007
Susana Balboa
Mendoza, Argentina
• Suggested retail and availability: About $12 at wine shops
Enticing as wild strawberries, with juicy texture, firm acidity and the oomph of 13.8 percent alcohol, this is the most satisfying quaff to hit this palate ever. Not too dry, not too sweet, this rose was as hearty with a Cheddar Burger and snow on the ground, as I'm sure it will be refreshing paired with international take-out when it's too hot to cook.