Christmas champagne pairing: an expert's guide

As the ultimate drink of celebration, champagne quite rightly goes hand in hand with the festive season. Whether you're planning to buy one special bottle, or to treat your family and friends to a wonderful selection, there's a style of champagne to choose for each moment of the big day. 

In this expert's guide to the best champagne for Christmas Day and for special occasions, Françoise Peretti, former director of the Champagne Bureau in the UK, shares her top tips to ensure you pick the right one for your festivities. 

Champagne for Christmas Day

Blanc de Blancs: a perfect beginning 

When the family is gathered around the tree opening presents, excitement is high and the day is young, opt for a lovely, refreshing Blanc de Blancs. Meaning "white of whites", this style is made from 100% white grapes and its lively nature will start everyone's day on an upwards-note. Typically chardonnay, Blanc de Blancs are usually a bright, white gold and exhibit beautiful notes of white flowers (think hawthorn, honey-suckle, jasmine and orange blossom), citrus and exotic fruits (like lychee and pineapple). 

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As dinner roasts slowly in the oven, I'd recommend serving this as an apéritif with tasty canapes and nibbles to tide everyone over. Think smoked salmon or trout blinis, daubed with crème fraiche, basil and lemon; devilled quails eggs, macadamias or Marcona almonds.

Vintage: the main event

Nothing produces a wow-factor more than unveiling a beautifully aged vintage champagne to serve alongside a glorious, golden roasted bird. Whether you're having a goose, bronze turkey or poulet de Bresse, ageing brings complexity to a champagne that gives it the ability to pair happily with all poultry (and to hold its own among the plethora of dishes that come with Christmas dinner).

Vintage champagne is made from grapes collected from a single harvest and will have the year of that harvest mentioned on the bottle. It is often described as "the expression of a year". In Champagne, a vintage must be aged by law for at least three years, but usually it's left in the cellar for six to eight years to enable it to reach its full potential before releasing it to the market. Typically, you can expect notes of brioche and Danish pastry to have developed; ripe, stewed fruits, or even hazelnuts and almonds.

Depending on the size of your gathering, I would recommend choosing a magnum, which adds magnificent theatre and drama to your dining table. There are a great array of current vintages to look out for, including 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012.

Rosé: enhance your cheese course 

On what other day is it acceptable to consume one's own body weight in cheese? Would we even recognise Christmas if we didn't have 30 types of cheese and the chutneys to match? My advice to you this year is to experiment and pair it with rosé champagne. At the cheesemonger my rule for cow's milk-based cheese is: "don't think blue – think ewe!". Or, select goat's cheese.

To curate your tower of cheese, British options include Perroche, Ragstone, Spenwood and Berkswell, among many fabulous others. These delicate, yet flavourful cheeses pair beautifully with the round fruitiness of rosé champagne, which often releases the delicious aromas of berries – such as strawberries, raspberries – and soft fruits like cherries. Not to mention, the stunning array of pink hues look exquisite in a candle-lit glass…

Demi-sec: delicious with dessert 

Demi-sec and Sec are two terms scarcely whispered in the UK, but I implore you to try something new. Try a sweeter style with a lavish chocolate Yule log, or with a dark chocolate Pavlova smothered with fresh cream and raspberries.

With champagne, you will find that the sweeter styles are not cloying, but maintain the wine's signature freshness that shines through. This makes it a delightful evening treat and pick-me-up after a generous meal. The beauty of keeping to champagne throughout the celebrations also means that you can avoid mixing your drinks, while having an immense variety of styles to choose from – so it’s likely that your head will be thanking you on Boxing Day. Christmas is a great time to experiment, so don't be afraid – be in the know!

Champagne for special occasions

Best champagne for an office party 

The Christmas office party brings all personality types together, so it may seem like a tricky task to choose a style that will please everyone. Brut NV is a fail safe. The "flagship" cuvée of each champagne house, Brut NV is the ultimate "party style" and can be served throughout the evening. Easy if you are the party planner...

Best champagne with Boxing Day leftovers 

The day after the big feast, bubble and squeak and cold meat will likely make their appearance on your table. In true hair-of-the-dog style, pair these with a lovely Blanc de Noirs, which is white champagne made exclusively from black grapes – Pinot Noir and Meunier. The use of black grapes means that Blanc de Noirs is full-bodied and complements poultry, pork and other rich foods well.

Best champagne for New Year's Eve 

New Year's Eve is the perfect time to put on a show and up the ante. To really impress your guests, I recommend choosing a bigger bottle size. A vintage champagne in magnums (equivalent to two 75cl bottles), or jeroboams (equivalent to four bottles) are ideal to create some drama and make this a night to remember, particularly if the party is quite large and you will be providing that quantity of wine in smaller bottles anyway.