Christmas Drinks Guide: What to Pour With an Australian Christmas Lunch

For an Australian Christmas lunch, pour sparkling with the prawns and the toast, a rosé or a light red with the ham, Chardonnay with turkey, Shiraz with anything off the barbecue, and prosecco with the pavlova. A 750 ml bottle pours five 150 ml glasses, so count your drinkers and divide by five. And put good alcohol-free drinks on the table beside the wine. If the drinks are a gift, our Christmas wine gifts pair each bottle with food to go with it.

Christmas here is a long lunch in the heat, and that changes what works in the glass. Big reds that suit a northern winter feel like hard work at three in the afternoon in December. The drinks that win are cold, bright and easy to keep pouring. This guide goes course by course, does the bottle maths, and finishes with the pours for everyone who is not drinking.

The Christmas pairing table

Match the drink to the strongest flavour on the plate, not to the most expensive bottle in the fridge. This is how the Australian Christmas menu lines up:

On the table	Pour	Why it works	A hamper to match
Prawns, oysters, smoked salmon	Sparkling, Champagne, Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio	Acidity and bubbles cut through salt and richness	Chandon Christmas Hamper
Glazed ham, served cold	Rosé, Pinot Noir or Pinot Gris	Light enough for the heat, with the fruit to meet a sweet glaze	Festive Celebrations Hamper
Roast turkey or chicken	Chardonnay, or a light red	Enough texture to match the meat without drowning it	Chateau Tanunda Grand Barossa Chardonnay Christmas Hamper
Lamb, beef and sausages off the barbecue	Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon	A red with the tannin to stand up to char and smoke	Our red wine hampers
The cheese board	Sparkling for a mixed board, Shiraz for hard cheese	Bubbles reset the palate; tannin suits aged cheddar	Our Champagne and sparkling hampers
Pavlova, trifle, cherries and mango	Prosecco or a sweeter sparkling	Light, fruity bubbles lift cream and summer fruit	Prosecco Celebration Hamper
Christmas pudding, mince tarts, chocolate	Shiraz, or a fortified if you have one	Dried fruit and cocoa meet a bigger red in the middle	Celebrate Shiraz & Chocolates Gift Box

If the cheese board is a big part of your day, our Christmas grazing platter ideas cover the quantities and the layout.

Sparkling: the bottle that covers everything

If you buy one style for Christmas, make it sparkling. It is the toast. It suits seafood and salty starters, cuts through ham and cheese, sits happily beside fruit and pavlova, and served properly cold it is the most refreshing thing on a hot table. It is also the easiest drink to give when you are guessing at someone's taste.

Champagne, prosecco and Australian sparkling are not interchangeable, though, and the difference is about what the bottle says. Champagne marks the big moment, prosecco keeps the afternoon light, and a good Australian or New Zealand sparkling sits between them. Our guide to Champagne, prosecco or sparkling explains which to choose. For an easy Christmas bottle, the Chandon Christmas Hamper sends Chandon Brut with butter shortbread in a festive sleeve.

How many bottles for Christmas lunch

A standard 750 ml bottle pours five 150 ml glasses of wine. From there the maths is simple: count the adults who are drinking, estimate the glasses each will have across the whole afternoon, and divide by five.

A worked example. Twelve adults, ten of them drinking, at a lunch that runs from midday into the evening. If each has a glass of sparkling on arrival, two glasses of wine with lunch and one later on, that is 40 glasses, or eight bottles. Round up to nine or ten so nobody is counting, because an unopened bottle keeps for the next gathering. Then chill more than you think you need: a warm second bottle is the classic Christmas shortfall.

• Split by style. For most tables, a third sparkling, a third white or rosé and a third red covers it. Lean towards white and sparkling if the forecast is hot.
• Ice is part of the order. Buy more than seems sensible, and keep a separate esky for drinks so the food fridge is not opened every few minutes.
• Water on every table. Jugs of iced water with lemon and mint, refilled all afternoon, are what keep a long, hot lunch pleasant.

Keeping the drinks cold on a hot day

On a 30-degree Christmas Day, keeping the drinks cold is half the job. The fridge will be full of food, so plan for the drinks to live somewhere else.

• Chill everything the day before. A bottle that goes into an esky already cold stays cold for hours. A warm one takes most of the afternoon to catch up.
• Use ice and water, not just ice. A tub or esky filled with ice and topped up with cold water chills bottles quicker than ice alone, because the water touches the whole bottle.
• Keep it in the shade. An esky in the sun is working against itself. Put it under the table or in the laundry.
• Open as you go. Open one bottle of each style at a time rather than lining them all up, so nothing sits half-full and warming on the table.
• Glasses that can go outside. If lunch moves into the backyard or the pool area, swap glass for a good reusable alternative, and keep the real glasses for the table.

Red, white and rosé for a hot day

An Australian Christmas is white and rosé weather, but most tables still want a red. Choose a medium-bodied one and serve it lightly chilled: a short spell in the fridge takes the edge off a red on a hot day without hiding its flavour. Barossa Shiraz is the classic Australian Christmas red, which is why it anchors so many of our red wine hampers. For whites, crisp and unoaked suits seafood and salads, and a fuller Chardonnay suits roast poultry. Rosé goes with almost the whole menu, and it tends to be the first bottle finished once the temperature climbs.

Christmas Champagne

If there is one bottle on the table with a story attached, it is the Champagne. Save it for the moment it is for: the toast before lunch, the announcement, the first glass for the person who cooked. Pour it into a flute or a white wine glass, cold, and open it with the cork held and the bottle turned, so it sighs rather than pops across the yard.

As a gift, Champagne says the year mattered. The Moët Gift Hamper and the Veuve Clicquot Champagne Celebration Hamper are two labels almost everyone recognises, and both sit in our Champagne and sparkling hampers alongside the Australian and New Zealand sparkling that suits everyone else on the list.

Beer, spirits and the after-lunch glass

Beer belongs at an Australian Christmas, mostly in the backyard and around the barbecue, and a cold pale ale with prawns or sausages is as good a pairing as any wine. After lunch, a whisky or a gin is as much a gift as a drink. Our alcohol hampers cover beer, wine and spirits, so you can match the gift to what each person actually drinks.

Good alcohol-free Christmas drinks

Every Christmas table needs these, and they deserve more effort than a bottle of lemonade. The people not drinking are drivers, kids, pregnant guests, anyone on medication and anyone who simply does not want to, and they should have something they are glad to be holding.

• A big jug of iced tea, brewed the night before, with lemon, mint and a little honey.
• Sparkling water with fruit: lime and mint, watermelon and basil, or frozen raspberries instead of ice.
• A non-alcoholic sparkling for the toast, so nobody raises a glass of water.
• A good ginger beer, served cold with plenty of ice and a wedge of lime.
• Coffee after lunch. A short black with dessert is the drink plenty of people want by mid-afternoon.

For someone on your gift list who does not drink, our non-alcoholic Christmas hampers keep the celebration and leave out the bottle. Check each product page for the details.

Pacing a long Christmas lunch

Christmas lunch in Australia can run from midday to dark, and the heat makes every glass count for more. A few habits keep the afternoon a good one for everybody:

• Have a glass of water before the first drink and between every round after that.
• Eat before you drink. The grazing board exists partly for this reason.
• Pour smaller and top up less often. Nobody needs a full glass at four o'clock.
• Sort out the drive home before the first bottle is opened, not after the last one.
• Put the alcohol-free drinks somewhere just as good-looking as the wine, so switching feels like a choice, not a consolation.

Christmas wine gifts

A wine gift lands best when it arrives with something to eat, which is the whole idea of a wine hamper. Choose by the person, not the price:

• For a household that entertains: a red and a white together, so the bottle suits whatever is on the table.
• For a red drinker: a regional bottle they would not buy for themselves, such as a Barossa Shiraz.
• For a toast: sparkling, with glasses if you want it opened that night.
• For a year worth marking: Champagne, in a box that makes the moment.

Every one of these is in our Christmas wine gifts, hand-packed in Victoria with a free personalised gift card for your message. Enjoy responsibly.