Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Day and are enjoying the 12 day feast. We had a quiet one in our new house, with Carol and Terry. Mandy went to school with Carol some fifty years ago, and I met them forty years ago. I have happy memories of Carol visiting us in Holland in the early nineties, and our toddler Robert following her around the flat going “Darrel, Darrel” which was as close to her name as he could get.

I cooked a very traditional Christmas lunch – turkey, vast numbers of pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, sprouts with chestnuts and bacon, cauliflower and broccoli in cheese sauce, mashed swede and carrot, gravy, cranberry sauce and the contentious bread sauce, I say contentious because for many it is a pointless, flavourless sauce. But for me it makes Christmas. We once stayed over Christmas in a very fancy hotel, and I rang them in advance to make sure we could get bread sauce. Yummy.

Everyone drank what they wanted. Terry and Mandy had champagne. Carol was driving and had a heavy cold so drank water. And I wanted wine. The question was which wine. Over the years I have read many opinions on the best wine to drink with turkey. Some say a crisp Chardonnay – maybe a Chablis. Others opt for a light red such as a Pinot Noir. Others agree with Mandy that Champagne cannot be beaten. But I really wanted a Chateau Musar.

Musar is my favourite wine. It comes from Lebanon, fairly near the holy land, so I suppose has a geographical connection with Christmas. But I just love the taste – deep, rich and powerful. It is everything that experts would say does not go with turkey – likely to take over the mouth taste instead of allowing you to enjoy the meat.

I called my younger son, Martin, to ask his advice, He used to be a sommelier and really knows his stuff. I think he was spot on when he said “It really does not go with turkey, but you should always remember that wine is meant to be enjoyed, and you should have whatever you enjoy.”

So I did. A 2005 vintage bottle that I had been saving. The cork was soft and broke up with the corkscrew, but the wine itself was not corked. I sieved it twice to remove the sediment and bits of floating cork, and then poured it fast into a decanter to introduce more air. To me it tasted wonderful. Maybe it did not go with turkey but I loved my Christmas dinner and I loved my wine.

What did you do for Christmas? I hope that as for me, happy memories were made. Join me next week for a brand new year.