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Holiday Pairing – Ham for the Holidays

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With your holiday menu planning underway, we thought it was about time we gave  you the goods on perfect pairings to grace your tables. We will feature traditional menus and the wines that will have your guests saying “I don’t know how they do it!”

Honey Glazed Ham for the Holidays!

A honey-glazed ham is a delicious holiday tradition that is most often paired with a fresh apple sauce, brussels sprouts and other green vegetables, and oven roasted potatoes. So what do we pair with this decadent meal?

The Naturally in Niagara pick: Riesling

Select an off-dry Riesling from Niagara will be the ultimate partner in pairing for the menu above!

Try these wines:

2010 Semi-Dry Riesling
Vineland Estates
$13.95

This wine is the ultimate family dinner crowd pleaser and is at a price point so great that you won’t mind sharing! Racy acidity and the off-dry palate will be the ultimate compliment to your honey glazed ham, with green apple aplenty that will shine with your accompaniments. Green vegetables don’t have many friends in the wine world, but Riesling is certainly amongst them! With bright flavours bouncing across your palate and the tingle of acidity acting as a palate cleanser, each bite of your meal will feel even more decadent than the last with this beautiful wine in your glass!

2010 Pinot Noir
Inniskillin
$14.95

Ham has a sweetness that is matched by an earthy taste that will be the element most enhanced with Pinot Noir. This bottle is shades of berry, earth, and smoke that will draw out the most beautiful notes of each element of your meal. Green vegetable selection will have to be a bit more precise for this bottle, but oven roasted brussels sprouts will be just right! For your potato inclusion think fingerlings with sea salt; the tannin in the Pinot Noir will be softened with the introduction of salt to the overall palate pleasing flavours of this meal resulting in a meal that is paired to perfection!

The Author

Allie Hughes is the wine and culinary contributor to Naturally in Niagara, feasting on the decadent experience that is life in this region. With a fine wine sensibility honed at the International Sommelier Guild, Allie is taking the journey of Niagara by the glass with you with each new taste. Allie is also the creative mind behind the marketing of the Canadian Food and Wine Institute, and owner of Hughes & Co., a boutique social strategy firm.

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