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Wines for Easter

From Stacy Slinkard,
Your Guide to Wine.
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What wines pair best with ham?

Easter Sunday, a time to reflect and celebrate the Lord's resurrection, and a time to gather with family and friends to share a special meal together. Traditional Easter menus tend to center around either a roasted ham or a leg of lamb, begging the question, "Which wine goes best with what?" We'll start with the ham.

Ham is often prepared with glazes or toppings that are sweet and can balance the inherent saltiness of the actual meat. Well paired wines can accomplish the same objective. For ham, the best "tried and true" companion wines are, hands-down - a Riesling or a Gewürztraminer. Both wines tend to offer fresh, flavorful taste profiles with enough sweet fruit to balance the salt in the ham and enough acidity to support the combination without compromising the flavor in either the ham or the wine. There are plenty of easy to find value Rieslings available to experiment with this Easter , and even more good quality Rieslings in the $10-25 range. If you are opting for a good Gewürztraminer, you may consider successful vintners such as Columbia-Crest, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Trimbach, or Domaine Schlumberger. A lightly oaked Chardonnay would also handle ham well, if you are partial to this particular white wine.

If red wine is your first choice, no matter what the meat, then a Zinfandel is a perfect pick, as the higher alcohol content and fruit forward approach can handle the ham's sweeter side.

As for lamb, whether rack of lamb, leg of lamb or roast of lamb the wines of choice include: Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, a Zinfandel or a Merlot. The goal is to have a wine with enough fruit and acidity to handle the robust flavors of the lamb, but not overpower it in the process.

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