French Wine for Weddings: How to Pair Wine for Your Wedding
The special event, a family wedding, is enhanced with careful planning. And carefully selected French wine for weddings can play a role in creating a memorable occasion.
You’ll want to make appropriate choices from the standpoints of affordability and flavor. What foods will you be serving at which event, and which wines go well with them?
First we’ll approach this from the standpoint of reliable wines with great value then we consider suggested menus and wine upgrades.
Here are some thoughts as we begin.
To start, when we planned our daughter’s wedding I had returned from Bordeaux and brought several fine wines with me. More to the point, I associated wines with French friends and pleasant occasions.
- For the Rehearsal Dinner, I served a magnum of classified Graves wine from our daughter’s birth year.
- Then the wedding dinner featured a fine Muscadet, Marquis de Goulaine, from a historic Loire Valley property near Nantes.
If you have visited some French wine châteaux, serve those wines, adding your personal touch to the occasion. And you will understand why many French parents put aside a case of fine wine from each child’s birth year. It will surely be perfect (and then unobtainable) to serve at that child’s wedding, many years later.
Events to plan on include the Rehearsal Dinner, the Wedding Luncheon or Dinner, and a Sunday Morning Brunch, often a buffet.
French Wines for Weddings
Rehearsal Dinner
- The Rehearsal Dinner is a convivial affair for close relatives and those directly involved in the wedding. It is usually held in a restaurant or club, with the family bringing special wines.
- First, you might have chilled salmon with dill sauce, Roast Leg of Lamb with mint sauce, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, and green beans with slivered almonds.
- Now let me suggest a Marquis de Goulaine Muscadet sur lie, a refreshing white wine, that complements the salmon perfectly.
- Next the Leg of Lamb is the classic dish for Bordeaux, so look for a flavorful wine such as a Château Clarke from Listrac, a fine property that deserves to be even better known.
Wedding Luncheon or Dinner
You will have a Wedding Luncheon or perhaps a Wedding Dinner to plan. It all depends upon the time for the wedding itself.
- Start with Quiche Lorraine, Grilled Chicken Breasts with baked zucchini and rice pilaf, with fruit-filled meringues and the Wedding Cake.
- An easy wine for weddings: Offer your guests a treat with chilled Chablis to go with the Quiche Lorraine, perhaps Sauternes “Vaillons” Ier Cru.
- And with chicken, offer a choice of Rothschild Mouton Cadet Red or White.
For the toasts to the bride and groom, only champagne will do. I suggest individual glasses be served of light Taittinger brut.
Sunday Morning Buffet
Sunday morning buffet may well be part of the wedding plans.
- This is usually held at some member of the family’s home. Now it is for out-of-town guests – but everybody will show up!
- Finally, I would serve a fine French sparkling wine, a Crémant de Limoux, either by itself or as a festive Mimosa with orange juice. Avoiding mixed drinks at the buffet is probably wise, and your guests will appreciate the festive bubbly touch!
Hopefully, this will help with pairing French wine for weddings. And don’t forget the honeymoon, how does a romantic trip to France sound?!
