With the Carnival starting today I thought it the perfect opportunity to pass on a couple of tips with regard to getting the best out of the red wine you choose to go with the last meat dish you will be having for a while and to give you some recommendations on how to match up a wine with your carnival cake ‘prinjolata’ to make it taste even better.

To savour the bottle of red wine you have chosen to accompany your meat dish and enjoy the wines attributes at its very best, you will have to let it ‘breathe’ or aerate a little. Generally speaking white and rose wines don’t really need time to breathe. But there are elements in a red wine, like tannins, that will almost always benefit from a little exposure to air before drinking. Almost all red wines will taste better if you just open them up beforehand (even 20 minutes will help) and let the wine ‘breathe’ in the oxygen which will allow it to soften a little and release all its flavour. If all you have time for is removing the cork, that’s fine, (but don’t push it back in the bottle) and if possible simply pour the wine into a decanter or carafe, or failing that directly into your wine glass fifteen minutes before drinking it, as this will speed up the breathing process and make your wine taste better, quicker!

To enhance your Carnival sweets, try drinking them with a luscious, sweet, dessert wine. To many people ‘the dessert’ can often be the crowning glory of any dinner party and serving another wine at the end of your meal takes your dinner party to another plateau, enhances your food and is guaranteed to end your evening on a high. And the good news is; matching your dessert with a wine is often far less difficult or critical than with other dishes. With most desserts, sweetness is the overriding factor and as long as you’re accompanying wine is as sweet or slightly sweeter you should be on safe ground.
To accompany a dish like Prinjolata, which can have a whole stack of mixed ingredients such as pine nuts, glazed cherries, chocolate, condensed milk, vermouth, cream etc, a cold glass of sweet white liqueur wine like Casella Moscato will go fantastically. Even a nice chilled glass of Delicata’s rose Gellewza frizzante will accompany it well, as the fizz will help cleanse the palate of all those sweet, sticky flavours.