Wines of the week: Best bottles to pair with music

Just a sip of mulled wine is enough to invoke the spirit of Christmas and with it, the carols that become the soundtrack to the season. But music and wine have a special relationship, regardless of the time of year. Terry Kirby explains how to pair the two for a symphony of sound and flavour

Sometime in the next few weeks, many of us will go to sing or listen to Christmas carols; occasions when, almost inevitably, mulled wine is served. So the two have an inexorable relationship in our senses of taste, smell and hearing – when we sip mulled wine, we will often have carols ringing in our ears and vice versa. Well, most of us.

The connection between wine and music is well understood and supported by recent academic research. How many times have we sipped our favourite wine while listening to or being reminded of a certain piece of music, or discovered that wines actively match certain types of music, as much as they do food. Oddbins quite cleverly matches its wines with musical recommendations, whether it be Johnny Cash, Queen or Django Rheinhardt.

And I can never, for instance, drink a Languedoc red without being reminded of the music played by my French friends, jazz enthusiasts in whose home decades ago I first discovered the pleasures of French wine (and food). They bought their wine from the local co-operative, just north of Montpellier but try the simply lovely Chateau L’Argentier Sommieres (£24.00 redsquirrelwine.com) a syrah grenache carignan blend from the hills outside Sommieres, just a few miles away.

Put on some John Coltrane or Miles Davis and grill lamb with rosemary for a real introduction to modern southern French winemaking.

Wine educator and author James Flewellen, who also happens to be a choral singer, also believes there is a complex relationship between fine wine and music. At a recent performance by Evoke, the choir of which he is a member, the audience were served three unusual, hand crafted wines paired with different sets of choral music.

Firstly, from indigenous grapes organically grown on flinty, volcanic slopes on the Atlantic island of Tenerife, the Trenzado Suertes del Marques, 2015 (£23 thesampler.co.uk) is beguilingly different: an earthy aroma, a steely, mineral feel to the palate and a long complex finish, aided by the wild yeasts used in fermentation.

To savour while listening to songs on the theme of Life and Land, it seemed entirely appropriate. With Romantic German songs, including ones by Brahms and Mendelssohn, he matched an amphora fermented Georgian red, bursting with rich, ripe, sensual red fruit flavours, the Saperavi Kakhetian Dry Red, Vinoterra 2014 (£11.95 thewinesociety.com) If you like modern Ribera del Duero wines from Spain, and the romance of the wine from the earliest place it was ever made, about 9,000 years ago, you will love this.

Finally, to accompany an Italian finale, a stunning Australian biodynamic red from the Barossa Valley, made with tempranillo and grenache, the Smallfry Joven 2015, (£18 thesampler.co.uk) lighter and as ethereal as the signing, with aromas of violets and tastes of sour cherries, plums and a hint of spice on the finish. Did the wine enhance the music and vice versa? Certainly the glorious setting of the Great Hall at St Bartholomew’s Hospital helped; why not experiment yourself at home with similar combinations?

And the relationship goes even further: some winemakers play music to enhance their vines, backed by research that suggests plants respond well to music. At the DeMorgenzon vineyards in Stellenbosch in South Africa, the vines are serenaded with classical music round the clock. Taste the gloriously robust and full bodied DeMorgenzon Chenin Blanc 2015: (£18.99 majestic.co.uk) complex, barrel fermented and wonderfully mouth filling to see for yourself; it’s a must for pork belly or rich fish dishes.

In New Zealand, biodynamic winemakers Peter Yealands also play classical music to parts of their organic Seaview estate in Marlborough’s Awatere Valley.

Their carefully made, wonderfully individual wines are certainly a gift to all the senses: try the Yealands Estate Single Vineyard PGR 2015 (£13.95 Great Western Wines) an intriguing blend of pinot gris, riesling and gewürztraminer: amazingly textured with layers of tropical and citrus fruit flavours and brilliant with Asian cuisine; or the fabulously balanced Single Vineyard Pinot Noir (£14.95 Great Western Wines) silky, modulated power with dark cherries, plums, spice, minerality; made for roast chicken or lighter game.

Does the music make any difference to the grapes and thus the wines? Perhaps we should ask the chickens that roam the Seaview vineyards: the ones close to the music lay eggs 19 per cent bigger than those elsewhere. That’s music to my ears.