One meal, five or six very different flavours, and a table full of people with opinions. Here is how to choose wine for Christmas dinner, course by course, with a safe pick and a treat pick from our shelves for each one.
Christmas 2026
The short answer
With canapés: Champagne or Crémant.
With smoked salmon or prawns: a crisp, unoaked white such as Chablis or Picpoul de Pinet.
With turkey: a light, juicy red like Beaujolais or Pinot Noir, or a rounded Chardonnay if you prefer white.
With beef or goose: a structured red such as Rioja Reserva, Bordeaux or Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
With Christmas pudding: a sweet fortified wine like Pedro Ximénez Sherry or tawny Port.
With the cheeseboard: Port with Stilton, Sauternes with other blue cheeses.
Christmas dinner is one of the hardest meals of the year to match wine to. Turkey is lean and mild, but it arrives with sausagemeat stuffing, bread sauce, sharp cranberry, sweet roasted parsnips and a gravy that has been reducing all morning. Then comes a pudding packed with dried fruit and brandy, and a cheeseboard that runs from mild Brie to salty Stilton.
The good news is that you do not need a different bottle for every mouthful. A few simple rules get you most of the way. Choose wines with good freshness, because acidity is what cuts through rich food. Keep tannins soft with lean white meat and save the big reds for beef and game. And make sure anything you serve with pudding is sweeter than the pudding itself, or the wine will taste thin and sour.
Canapés and the First Glass
Start with bubbles. They wake up the palate, and the high acidity of traditional-method sparkling wine cuts straight through pastry, sausage rolls and anything fried. If you are serving a crowd, a good Crémant gives you the same method and much of the same toasty character as Champagne for around half the price. If it is a smaller table and a special year, open the Champagne. For a much fuller guide to festive fizz, read our guide to sparkling wine for Christmas.
Safe pick: canapés
Traditional-method fizz from the Languedoc, with citrus, green apple and a soft, creamy finish. Easy to love and easy on the budget when you are pouring for ten.
Treat pick: canapés
Jules Feraud Brut Champagne NV
Proper Champagne with fine bubbles, brioche and baked apple. Also available as a half bottle for two and a magnum for a party.
Smoked Salmon, Prawns and Lighter Starters
Smoked salmon is oily and salty, so it needs a white with plenty of acidity and no heavy oak. Think crisp, mineral and fresh. Chablis is the classic match: it is Chardonnay, but grown in a cool climate and usually made without new oak, so it tastes of lemon and wet stone rather than butter and vanilla. Picpoul de Pinet from the south of France is the brilliant budget alternative and is wonderful with prawns. If your starter is a pâté or terrine instead, a glass of the fizz you opened earlier works perfectly.
Safe pick: starters
Picpoul de Pinet, Domaine Foncastel
Zesty, salty and refreshing, grown by the Mediterranean lagoon at Thau, which is famous for its oysters. Made for seafood.
Treat pick: starters
Pure, precise Chablis with lemon, green apple and a chalky finish. The textbook partner for smoked salmon.
Roast Turkey and All the Trimmings
This is the big one. Turkey itself is mild, so the trimmings decide the wine. You want something that will not overpower the meat but has enough fruit and freshness to stand up to stuffing, cranberry and gravy. That rules out heavy, tannic reds, which can make lean white meat taste dry.
For red drinkers, Beaujolais and Pinot Noir are the best choices on the table. Both are light in tannin and bright with red fruit that loves cranberry sauce. Serve them a little cooler than room temperature, about 20 minutes in the fridge, and they come alive. For white drinkers, step up from the starter wine to a rounder Chardonnay with a little more body. White Burgundy from the Mâconnais is ideal.
Safe pick: turkey (red)
Beaujolais "Parcellaire" by Albert Bichot
Juicy Gamay full of cherry and raspberry, with soft tannins and plenty of freshness. Serve slightly chilled and watch it disappear.
Treat pick: turkey (red)
Wairau River Reserve Pinot Noir 'Black Label'
Marlborough Pinot Noir from one of the region's founding families. Silky red cherry and plum with a touch of spice and real finesse, and exactly the right weight for turkey and cranberry.
If you prefer white with turkey
Albert Bichot Mâcon-Villages Blanc
Ripe, rounded Burgundian Chardonnay with orchard fruit and a gentle richness that matches turkey, bread sauce and buttery roast potatoes.
Roast Beef, Goose or Lamb
If your centrepiece is red meat or a rich bird like goose, you can bring out the bigger reds. Fat and protein soften tannin, so a structured wine that might feel firm on its own becomes smooth and generous with a rib of beef. Rioja Reserva is a reliable crowd-pleaser, with oak-aged warmth and vanilla spice. Bordeaux has the classic cassis and cedar that suits beef so well. For goose, which is fatty and full-flavoured, a Southern Rhône red such as Châteauneuf-du-Pape brings ripe fruit, herbs and enough body to match. Open these an hour before you eat, or pour them into a decanter.
Safe pick: beef, goose or lamb
Classic Tempranillo with red berries, vanilla and sweet spice from oak ageing, and soft, rounded tannins. Generous, warming and very hard to dislike.
Treat pick: beef, goose or lamb
Château Beauchêne Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Grenache-led Southern Rhône red with dark cherry, garrigue herbs and a warm, silky depth that is wonderful with goose or beef. For a Bordeaux alternative, try Château La Patache, Pomerol, plush Merlot with plum and a savoury, truffly edge.
Glazed Ham
Ham is salty and often glazed with honey, mustard or marmalade, so it needs a wine with fruit and freshness rather than heavy tannin. A juicy Côtes du Rhône works well for red drinkers, while Chenin Blanc from Vouvray, with its apple, quince and honey notes, matches a sweet glaze beautifully. Both are also excellent on Boxing Day with cold cuts and pickles.
Safe pick: ham (red)
Côtes du Rhône, Commandeur St. Michel
Soft, spicy Grenache and Syrah with ripe red fruit. A brilliant all-rounder for the Boxing Day buffet.
Treat pick: ham (white)
Loire Chenin Blanc with baked apple, quince and a hint of honey, balanced by bright acidity. Superb with a honey-glazed ham.
Nut Roast, Mushroom Wellington and Vegetarian Mains
Earthy, savoury dishes built on chestnuts, mushrooms and herbs suit wines with savoury character and good acidity. Chianti is a natural match: its sour cherry and dried-herb notes echo the woodland flavours on the plate, and its freshness cuts through pastry. If you would rather serve a white, try an oak-aged white Rioja, which has a nutty richness that sits beautifully alongside chestnut.
Safe pick: vegetarian mains
Tuscan Sangiovese with sour cherry, dried herbs and a savoury depth. Particularly good with mushroom dishes.
Treat pick: vegetarian mains
Barrel-aged white Rioja with a rich, nutty texture, ripe stone fruit and a long, savoury finish. A lovely surprise for anyone who thinks Rioja only comes in red.
Christmas Pudding and Mince Pies
This is where many good dinners end with a disappointing glass. Christmas pudding is intensely sweet and rich, so the wine needs to be at least as sweet, with plenty of dried-fruit flavour of its own. Light dessert wines get lost. Fortified sweet wines are the answer. Pedro Ximénez Sherry, made from sun-dried grapes, tastes of raisins, figs and molasses and is superb with pudding. Any left over is wonderful poured over vanilla ice cream. For mince pies, a lighter Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise is fresh and fragrant without being heavy.
Safe pick: mince pies
Domaine de Beaumalric Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise
Sweet, floral and fresh, with apricot and orange blossom. Serve well chilled with mince pies or a fruit tart.
Treat pick: Christmas pudding
Dark, rich and luscious, with raisins, figs, dates and coffee. It has the weight and sweetness to stand up to the richest pudding.
The Cheeseboard
Stilton and Port is one of the great partnerships, and for good reason: the sweetness and richness of the Port balance the salt and tang of the blue cheese. A Reserve Port is ideal for most tables. A 20-year-old tawny, with its nutty, dried-fruit character, is a real treat and pairs equally well with mature Cheddar and with Christmas cake. For a different take on blue cheese, try Sauternes, the classic French match for Roquefort. Our half bottle is the perfect size for the end of a long meal. If you are still drinking red, finish the beef wine with hard cheeses.
Safe pick: cheeseboard
Rich, ripe and plummy, with the depth to match a generous wedge of Stilton.
Treat pick: cheeseboard
Barão de Vilar 20 Year Old Tawny Port
Two decades in barrel give walnut, fig, caramel and orange peel. In a hand-painted bottle, it doubles as a beautiful gift. Prefer Sauternes with blue cheese? Try Les Remparts de Bastor-Lamontagne Sauternes.
How Much Wine Do You Need for Christmas Dinner?
A 75cl bottle gives about six glasses. For a sit-down Christmas dinner, a good rule of thumb is half a bottle per adult who is drinking, plus a bottle of fizz for every five or six guests to start, and one bottle of sweet wine or Port for every eight to ten people. It is always better to have a bottle left over for Boxing Day than to run out before the turkey is carved.
If you would rather not choose bottle by bottle, our Christmas wine cases are put together by the team for exactly this meal.
Common Questions
Is red or white wine better with turkey?
Both work. Choose a light, fruity red such as Beaujolais or Pinot Noir, or a rounded white such as Burgundian Chardonnay. Avoid heavy, tannic reds, which can make turkey taste dry.
What wine goes with Christmas pudding?
A sweet fortified wine such as Pedro Ximénez Sherry or tawny Port. The wine must be at least as sweet as the pudding.
Should I serve red wine chilled at Christmas?
Light reds like Beaujolais and Pinot Noir are better slightly cool. Twenty minutes in the fridge is about right. Warm dining rooms quickly make wine taste soupy, so even fuller reds benefit from being kept away from the oven and the radiator.
What is a good all-round wine for Christmas dinner?
If you only want to open one red, choose Pinot Noir. If you only want one white, choose a good Chardonnay from Burgundy. Both are versatile enough to cover the starter, the turkey and most of the trimmings.
