Sunday lunch wines: 25 perfect picks

While the long lunch may have disappeared from our weekday lives (well, mine at least), there’s nothing like a lingering Sunday get-together with family and friends to round off the weekend.

Wine lovers will no doubt see it as an opportunity to pull out a treasured bottle, but is that the best strategy? Should it be mellow and mature or bright, youthful and fruity? That depends rather less on the central ingredient of the meal than the way you cook it.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 25 fabulous matches for your leisurely Sunday lunches

Take pork, for instance. If you were cooking it Italian style with garlic and herbs you might want an Italian red such as a Chianti, but serve it with crackling and apple sauce, and you might be better off with a Riesling or a Chenin Blanc.

With beef it’s more about the cut and how rare it is. If you were cooking a beef Wellington nicely underdone, for example, I would be inclined to go for a medium-bodied red with some elegance such as a Pomerol, whereas you would want something more robust – a Zinfandel, say, or a gutsy Grenache or GSM blend – with sticky, slow-braised beef or ox cheek and mash.

Keep it simple

If you’re going to showcase a wine, it pays to keep the food simple. A great Bordeaux needs little more than a simple jus, a few garlicky green beans and maybe the indulgence of a gratin dauphinoise.

Lamb is perhaps the most forgiving of meats – good news with Easter around the corner – but it will still take you in different directions depending on the way you cook it. Serve a herb-crusted rack of lamb in the spring and it’s a great opportunity to bring out a good red Burgundy.

Slow cook a shoulder Middle Eastern style and you could opt instead for a northern Rhône Syrah or a Rioja reserva, while with a more autumnal roast of mutton with root vegetables, older, more gamey reds could come into play – again, I would probably go for the Rhône. But butterfly your lamb and cook it on the barbecue, as many do year-round these days, and I would go for brighter fruit – maybe something vibrant, such as a Mencía.

Tricky customers – matching those strong flavours

It’s mainly sauces and sides, rather than the central ingredient, that can throw your wine pairing. Heavily reduced wine-based sauces can overwhelm lighter reds or more fragile old vintages. Red cabbage needs you to ramp up the intensity of your wine – think Shiraz – whereas with ratatouille you might want to go for a southern Rhône cru or other Grenache-Shiraz-Mourvèdre-type blend. Spicy salsas or salads with raw onion can be tough on wine and are often better with a robust rosé than a red. On the other hand, fine wine loves butter, cream and – perhaps surprisingly – garlic!

Chicken and vegetarian options

Chicken, too, adapts to the seasons, though winter or summer you can pair it with a great white. Think of the classic dish with morel mushrooms, which is often paired with a vin jaune – speciality of the Jura region, a part-oxidised dry white Savagnin aged in barrels for more than six years; but perhaps in a less challenging vein, for a family occasion, with a good white Burgundy or other cool-climate Chardonnay. The same style of wine would also work a treat with a chicken pie.

In the heat of summer, however, I actually like to cook the chicken earlier in the day, let it cool to room temperature and serve it with a gratin or salad, in which case a good Provence rosé would make an ideal accompaniment.

And yes, of course, a red is another option – lighter reds for preference; simple roast chicken is a perfect foil for Beaujolais.

These days, many Sunday lunches are vegetarian or vegan, so what do you do about those? Again, I think it’s a question of the style of the food and the flavours that are on the plate.

It’s not uncommon now to roast a whole cauliflower or a celeriac as a centrepiece, which will go well with richly textured southern French whites or wines made from Rhône varieties such as Grenache Blanc or Grenache Gris, Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne. There are so many possibilities!

See notes and scores for 25 fabulous Sunday lunch wines

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