The best food and wine holiday
Thanksgiving is about our favorite holiday, and while we still stay pretty close to the traditional dishes and preparations in our celebration, it is still one of the great wine and food pairing opportunities. The gatherings, for most of us, are larger than our normal, which also gives us the opportunity to sample more wines with the meal as we try to have something that will please all the varied palates gathered at our home for dinner. Here are some of our favorites that we plan to have this year.
Both at Christmas and at Thanksgiving, we gather the night before the big event for a meal of Dungeness crab Louis, a big salad and some fresh crusty French bread. For any seafood, but especially with crab, Chardonnay is about the best pairing. The 2012 Hidden Crush Chardonnay is a great choice for a crowd. Priced at $12, it offers all of the generous notes we are used to with California Chard, with great packaging to impress your guests when the bottle hits the table. If you are having a more intimate gathering for the crab feast and want to upgrade the wine a bit, we recommend the Pouilly-Fuisse from La Chapelle. While not inexpensive at $35, it is a classic white Burgundy and will go great with crab.
When our guests arrive on Thanksgiving, we like to greet them with a glass of sparkling to set a festive mood. We recently discovered the Cremant de Bourgone Brut Rose from legendary red Burgundy producer Louis Bouillot. This bone dry but lush sparkler is delicious and very well priced at $15. We also like the Lambert de Seysel le Petit Royal from the Savoie region of France near the Swiss border. The Lambert is a bit richer, but still dry and lovely, $22. For the first year ever, we have access to one of the truly great Champagnes made in France, Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose. It is stunning, but should be reserved for a small gathering, $125.
For the big meal on Thanksgiving Day, we like to have both white and red available. While some of our guests may prefer white with their meal, white is also good as an aperitif. The 2012 Skylark Pinot Blanc is one of the most elegant wines we have ever tasted and with its lack of oak, no malolactic fermentation and crisp acid, it is the perfect white to keep the rich turkey and all the decadent sides in check, $22. At our recent Skylark events this wine was the biggest seller, outselling all the reds by a factor. White wines that are just a bit sweet but again, possess good acid, also do nicely with a rich meal, so a more crowd-pleasing choice would be the 2012 Portuga White from Portugal, a delicious steal at $7.95.
Reds are a must for many of us for good reason. Pinot Noir is the most natural pairing with gamey birds like turkey, and the choices abound in this wonderful light bodied varietal. The District 7 from Monterey California is a great choice with its cherry and earthy flavors and aromatics, and will work for a crowd priced at $15. One of our favorite Pinots year in and year out is the Balletto, and the 2011 is no exception. Priced at $32, it is rich and lush and while spendy, is worth every penny and will be fabulous with turkey.
A more unusual alternative is to have vintage Beaujolais made from the Gamay grape in France. The vintage version of this varietal is nothing like the Kool-Aid neauveau Beaujolais - it is richer and has more depth of flavors focused on cherries and earth, like Pinot Noir. The 2012 Cte de Brouilly from Nicole Chanrion 24 is just lovely and has wonderfully bright acid, making it perfect with a big, rich meal.
Rhone varietals like Syrah and Grenache continue their resurgence and with their inherent rusticity, they also go great with gamey birds, including turkey. We like the Skylark Grenache quite a lot on Thanksgiving with its combination of juicy fruit flavors and subtle earthiness ($31). The blend of Grenache, Syrah and Cinsault from French producer Domaine des Rozets can't be beat either for $10, if your gathering is large. Like the Skylark, it possesses juicy fruit flavors and hints of earth and meat that will help your meal really shine.
The choices for this most traditional American holiday and meal abound. Visit us here at the shop or with your favorite wine professional to find the perfect wine to meet the needs for your gathering and to please all the palates in your group.
If there is a topic you would like to read about, or if you have questions on wine, you can email George@thedinnerpartyshop.com, or make suggestions by contacting the Healthy Community section at the Coeur d'Alene Press.
George Balling is co-owner with his wife Mary Lancaster of the dinner party, a wine and table top decor shop in Coeur d'Alene by Costco. George is also the managing judge of The North Idaho Wine Rodeo and is the wine editor for Coeur d'Alene Magazine (www.cdamagazine.com). You can learn more about the dinner party at www.thedinnerpartyshop.com. You can get all of these articles, as well as other great wine tips, by friending us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/#!/dinnerpartyshop.