Forget festive food ideas and inspiration, what about the wine? All too often people plump for the obvious, be it Chablis or Côte-Rôtie, but Times wine critic Jane MacQuitty has come up with an alternative list for the Pont Christmas Wine Dinner. She’ll be pitting her alternatives against master sommelier Nicolas Clerc’s wine classics this Thursday evening at Le Pont de la Tour.

The menu below might not look like your typical Christmas dinner, but the intensity and richness of flavours are echoed in many Christmas meals and call for equally robust wines. Here, French and British influences combine to create a menu featuring lobster bisque, confit of salmon with soft quail egg & tarragon jelly, roasted hen pheasant with stuffed cabbage and game toast or, for dessert, the classic almond Christmas cake, Galette des Rois.

See below for Jane’s alternative Christmas wines – each carefully chosen to complement a specific course:

The menu:

Canapés:

H.Forman & Son Scottish salmon
Tartare of cured & raw salmon, cucumber & dill
Confit salmon, soft quail egg & tarragon jelly
London Cure smoked salmon, sour cream & Oscietra caviar, Melba toast
Warm salmon mousseline, Noilly Prat velouté

The first course:

Festive hors d’oeuvre
Artichoke heart, foie gras & truffle salad
Baked Orkney scallop in the shell, ceps & celery
Lobster bisque
Glazed Carlingford Lough oyster & champagne

The main course:

Roasted hen pheasant, stuffed cabbage, game toast, parsnip purée, spiced jus

A selection of festive puddings:

Glazed spiced candied winter fruits ‘en croustade’
Galette des Rois – Classic almond Christmas cake
Iced Ardèche Chestnut ‘bûche’
Marsala sabayon

An alternative wine for canapés: Henriot Blanc de Blancs Brut Champagne NV

Why choose this wine: Jane describes these canapés as “an assault course for any champagne”. To cope with the intensity of fishy flavours she chose a blanc de blancs champagne made exclusively from chardonnay grapes, rather than a traditional blend. This is because you don’t need a bold champagne, but something “zesty, tart and slimline to stand up to the fishy flavours”, says Jane. The wine works like a squeeze of lemon juice.

An alternative wine for the first course: 2009 Mas de Daumas Gassac Blanc, Vin de Pays de l’Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon, France

Why choose this wine: You may never have heard of this white before and Jane describes it as a “fruit salad”, because it contains 15 grape varieties, dominated by viognier, chardonnay and petit manseng. It is pitted against a classic Premier Cru Chablis: steely, bone dry and minerally enough to stand up to the sweet foie gras, scallops and briny oysters in this course.

Mas de Daumas, however, has backbone and body from the chardonnay grape, but also exotic and aromatic flavours from its array of grape varieties. These act as “ballast”, to counterbalance the food – “it is quite a punchy white with the guts and body, I hope, to match the dish,” says Jane.

An alternative wine to accompany pheasant: 2008 Sequillo Red, Swartland, Eben Sadie, South Africa

Why choose this wine: “When you serve game there are really only two areas in France you can go to – Burgundy or the Rhône,” says Jane. “You need a big red with pheasant.” In this case the classic choice is a Côte-Rôtie from the Rhône, but for her alternative Jane picked a South African red by Eben Sadie.

“It’s very briary and tannic, big and heavy, but it’s very judiciously done with a fine, perfumed and spicy quality,” she says. “With a very rich dinner like this the flavours build in intensity all the time, so you also need to ramp up the flavour in the wine.”

An alternative wine for your Christmas pud: 2008 Hatzidakis, Voudomato, Vin Rouge Naturellement Doux, Greece

Why choose this wine: With its spicy, treacly, dried-fruit flavours, Christmas pudding is difficult to match with wine, as are candied winter fruits and marsala sabayon (see the menu). Jane’s choice of the Hatzidakis is an unusual one. “It’s a weird and wonderful wine made on the Greek island of Santorini. It’s very rich and luscious with hints of wild cherry, figs and herbs.”

The vines grow in volcanic ash, pumice stone and lava. To protect the vines from sun and salty winds they are woven together into circles (similar in appearance to birds’ nests). The harvested grapes are then laid out in the sun to raisin and the wine is aged for five years in old barrels.

Further information:

Tickets to the Christmas with a Twist Wine Dinner with Jane MacQuitty cost £110 per person and include a champagne reception, three-course dinner, specially selected wines, coffee and petits fours. The evening will start at 7pm for dinner prompt at 7.30pm, Thursday, November 24.