Brandy, whisky, rum, Madeira and Sherry are all popular choices.
Much like some in-laws, the key to preventing the cake from becoming dry during the Christmas period is by ‘feeding’ it regularly with spirits or fortified wine.
According to Victorian tradition, the cake should be made on ‘Stir-up Sunday’ in late November, along with Christmas puddings and mince pies. This cake is unusual for its ability to last for many months past Christmas, with some claiming it’s perfectly edible up to a year later if stored correctly. It’s usually covered in marzipan, a thick layer of royal icing and decorations such as a sprig of holly or Christmas figurines. Treasured family recipes can vary, but in essence it’s a dense cake packed with dried or candied fruit and flavoured with mixed spices. Laden with fruit, soaked in booze and wafting sweet spice aromas, the Christmas cake is the epitome of festive indulgence. Save on a Decanter magazine subscription this Christmas But some, such as the ‘beautifully aged’ Le Ragose, Marta Galli 2008, spend up to five years in French oak barrels, gaining well-integrated notes of ‘autumnal fruit and Christmas spice’. Once the wine is lying quietly in the barrel room, the time it spends in contact with the wood will ultimately decide the prominence of its spicy oak characteristics.īy law, Amarone della Valpolicella wines must be oak aged for a minimum of two years. Many producers use a combination of new and older oak, such as Leeuwin Estate’s Siblings Shiraz 2016 from Margaret River in Australia, which was aged in 30% new oak to get the right balance of its ‘sweet Christmas spice tones’. The age of the wood will also affect the strength of spicy oak influences in the final wine an old, used barrel will not have the strong flavours of a newly toasted one. ‘More heavily toasted barrels lend a wine sweetness’, said William Kelley in his guide to oak barrels, suggesting that sweet Christmas spice notes might come from wines aged in oak with a heavier toast grade.
‘A barrel of 225 litres will have a much stronger effect on the wine than a foudre of 1,000 litres or more,’ explained Sarah Jane Evans MW in her Ask Decanter article.īarrels are categorised as having light, medium or heavy toast – a process that involves a fire being burnt inside the half-finished barrel. Secondly, the size and ‘toast’ of the barrel have an impact. Tasters noted ‘a smart use of oak, with cedar and Christmas spices’ in Babich’s Irongate Cabernet Merlot Franc 2016 from Gimblett Gravels, New Zealand, which was aged for 14 months in French oak barriques.
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