Get your wines lined up for Year of the Sheep
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WITH the Chinese New Year holiday rapidly approaching, wine lovers in Shanghai are beginning to ruminate over wine selection for the important New Year’s Eve dinner. Ideal wine solutions combine both practical and fun factors.
On the practical side, the wines should be popular with all family members from the young to the old, wine novices to connoisseurs and also match well with popular holiday dishes. Symbolism is also important so choosing wines, so goat-related themes or labels will add further amusement to your evening meal.
Goat or Sheep
Every 12 years I get confused whether it’s the Year of the Goat or Year of the Sheep. Why not Year of the Ram, Ewe or Wether? In the Chinese language, the Chinese character Yang (羊) doesn’t distinguish between the genus Ovis, or sheep, and genus Capra that includes wild and domesticated goats.
People born in the Year of the Sheep are considered polite, filial, sensitive and social. These are certainly fine attributes for wine lovers. Weaknesses attributed to those born in goat years are shyness, moodiness, indecision and faint-heartedness. I’d like to point out that all these frailties can be mitigated by an ample glass of wine. Therefore I conclude your Year of the Sheep should include a bounty of delicious wines. Getting the right vino start during the lunar New Year’s Eve dinner is an imperative.
Whether you are superstitious or not, I suggest picking wines that feature colors deemed fortuitous during the Year of the Sheep. Lucky colors are green, red and purple. White wines noted for greenish tones are Sauvignon Blanc and Albarino. Many young Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tempranillo, Grenache and Sangiovese red wines feature bright ruby red colors while youthful Syrah New World red wines are noted for shades of purple. Colors to avoid are gold and brown, so its best to eschew golden colored Chardonnays, Pinot Grigios and oxidized brown shaded Sherries.
You can also play the numbers game and pick wines from goat vintages. The most recent goat vintage is 2003. This was one of the hottest years in Europe and is considered a very good to excellent vintage for red wines in Bordeaux, Northern Rhone, Tuscany and Napa Valley. The prior goat vintage of 1991 was generally a poor one in Europe with the exception of the Northern Rhone but was a great vintage for Napa and Sonoma reds. If you can find them and wish to splurge, then a top Bordeaux from the great 1955 vintage would provide an exceptionally hedonist New Year’s Eve wine experience.
Goat wines
Another way to get a kick (pun intended) out of your wines this New Year’s Eve is to have a goat wine. No, I don’t mean a wine made with goat milk, but rather wines that have goat-related names or labels. Among these are the wines of Goats do Roam. The name of this South African winery is a humorous pun on the popular Cote du Rhone wines from the Southern Rhone of France. I find this unpretentious and witty name quite amusing, but the French authorities beg to differ and in 2004 the Institut National des Appellations filed a formal protest with South African authorities claiming the name was too similar to Cote du Rhone. The owner of Goats do Roam reacted by organizing a protest outside the French Embassy in South Africa — using a herd of goats.
Issues of appellations and names aside, the wines of Goat do Roam are actually quite good. Their flagship, Southern Rhone-style Goat du Roam red wine is the best-selling South African red wine in the United States.
They also have additional wines that pun popular French appellations including a northern Rhone style Syrah Viognier red wine called Goat Rotie and another red named Bored Doe. Most of their red wines have a pleasant fruit-forward style with soft tannins that helps make them fine companions to many Chinese New Year dishes.
The Italians, a large cooperative in the northern Italian region of Veneto, makes a pleasant Merlot wine that sports a mythical ram with tail on the label. This eminently affordable, light-bodied red wine features lots of red berry flavors, gentle tannins with good freshness that helps it pair well with white meat and seafood dishes alike. Should you favor white wines, The Italians also make a goat-labeled Pinot Grigio white with luscious yellow fruit qualities and a crispy-clean finish. Goats are herd animals and by nature quite social, so its only natural that we pair these goat-themed wines with goat, lamb or mutton dishes.
Goat pairings
One very appropriate dish for New Year’s Eve dinner is San Yang Kai Tai (三羊开泰). The dish is named after a traditional Chinese idiom meaning “the spring comes in full form.” Because the pronunciation of “sun” and “sheep” is the same in Chinese, in the Year of Sheep people like to use the word “sheep” instead of “sun”. There are various ways of preparing this dish but during the Year of the Sheep most chefs combine lamb or mutton, Chinese radish and cabbage in a hearty stew. The Rhone-style Goats do Roam red wines would be fine companions to this dish as would their namesake Cote du Rhone reds. Should you prefer a more weighty red, try a northern Rhone Syrah wine called St. Joseph. This elegant and intriguingly spicy red wine wonderfully highlights the savory nature of lamb dishes.
I recently tried a delicious Yunnan goat cheese dish that also features broccoli and tomato. Goat cheese from Yunnan (乳扇) is more mild in flavor than Western goat cheese, and when stir-fried develops a lovely crispy-creamy texture. The Italians Pinot Grigio is the perfect wine for this dish, as the acidity in the wine highlights flavors and facilitates digestion.
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