Best wines for fall
Whether you’re cooking up a dinner party feast, or simply thinking about which wines to enjoy with dinner over the months ahead, here are our suggestions on what to pair with three classic seasonal ingredients.
Apples
Is there any fruit that is more synonymous with fall? This is a season of apples in abundance, to the extent that it can be hard to know what to do with them all. Enter apple chutney – a seasonal favorite to see you right up to Christmas. Highly versatile, it adds a special touch to all manner of warming dishes – curries, roast dinners, sandwiches, cold cuts and more.
What to drink with it depends on context. If you are having apple chutney with sausages, a glass of red Bordeaux would work very nicely – perhaps a St Emilion from the Right Bank, with a softer, more plush character than its Left Bank counterparts. On the other hand, if you are enjoying it with cold cuts, bread and cheeses, a wine such as the Good Ordinary White would fit the bill nicely.
Another way with apples, of course, is the classic apple pie. The general rule is to match a sweet dish with a sweeter wine. Not to say it’s a rule you always have to follow, but an off-dry Vouvray or a Coteaux du Layon from the Loire Valley would work very well here. These wines balance sweetness with a sharp acidity to match the zing of the apples.
Root vegetables
A dazzling array of root vegetables come into season in the fall – parsnips, pumpkins, turnips, sweet potatoes and winter squash are all good to eat now.
These have a soft, rich character that absorbs flavors very well. All of these, for instance, would make delicious curries and soups. You cannot go wrong with a spicy root vegetable soup. My version consists of roasted pumpkin, sweet potato or squash (or a combination of them), cooked with ginger, turmeric, garam masala, a touch of chilli and coconut cream, then blended until smooth. Serve with buttered sourdough toast for an easy dinner-party starter.
An oak-aged Chardonnay would work well here – something with soft, ripe fruit and a little spice to match the flavors in the soup. A rich, full-bodied Pinot Gris from the Alsace region in France would be another fine match.
Root vegetables have a naturally sweet character, lending themselves well to desserts. Pumpkin pie, in particular, is a favorite for Thanksgiving celebrations. There are various flavors and elements to think about here – spicy notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, woven through the creamy texture of the custard and encased in buttery shortcrust pastry.
Try a richly nutty Oloroso Sherry – with concentrated dried fruit notes, it would pair nicely with any cinnamon and nutmeg flavors in the pie. Spirits should not be overlooked either, and here, a deliciously sticky rum – such as Foursquare’s or our El Dorado Guyana Rum – could work a charm.
Eggplant
Starting in late summer, eggplant season continues well into the fall, and there are many hearty dishes that make good use of this produce.
Parmigiana alla melanzane is a real treat, and makes an excellent dinner-party centerpiece. Layers of baked eggplant, slathered with rich tomato sauce and oozing with melted mozzarella and parmesan. Here, you’ll want a similarly juicy wine to match – an Italian Primitivo or its Californian counterpart, Zinfandel, would work beautifully.
Moussaka is another fantastic dish for fall. Again, this consists of rich and warming layers – eggplant, spicy meat sauce, potato and creamy béchamel, laced with nutmeg and cinnamon spice (for a vegetarian version, just swap the meat for lentils). Xinomavro, one of Greece’s indigenous grape varieties, would make a fine match here, with its undertones of black olives and spice. Likewise, a robust and peppery Syrah would also work well, standing up to the meat sauce and fragrant spice very nicely.