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thanksgiving
Turkey wine V: All-American zinfandel for feasts of fire
Patriotic pride alone make Zinfandel my favorite red for Thanksgiving. A wine of such mixed ancestry and stories (Italians, Croatians and Hungarians all play a part); it is best described as a uniquely American grape. Certainly it was a favorite of the Italian pioneers who planted much of northern California with hearty reds at a time when farming depended on human and animal muscle.
2007 Seghesio Zinfandel Rockpile Road ($29.99)
Zinfandel’s peasant heritage and its spicy brambly taste make it perfect for the adventurous table. If your turkey is grilled or smoked with a red pepper/garlic rub, or the bird is stuffed with cornbread fired up with spicy sausage, chipotle and onion, Zin’s your Vin. To me Zinfandel is a bright red square on almost any crazy quilt of Thanksgiving flavors.
Zin also lets you go high and low, light and heavy depending on the crowd. Following the three Rs, Ravenswood, Rosenblum and Ridge is a good start. Another R, Rockpile Road in Dry Creek Valley
2006 Rosenblum ($29.99) and 2007 Seghesio ($29.99), from a grand old family in Zin.
For a big crowd however, you can’t beat anything in the Cline and Bogle spectrum, starting at $9.99.
Turkey wine IV: Beaujolais nouveau’s timing is perfect
Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau $7.99
No wine says, “thanks for the harvest” better than the first pressing of this year’s grapes. Opening a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau is a Thanksgiving for the crop, the wine growers and the pickers. It even comes on a Thursday, a week ahead of Thanksgiving, so you can inspect it first.
I say ‘’mais, oui” to the 2009. Bojo always has the same modest body, smiling flavors and cherry and pepper notes that match a table crowded with family and fruity flavors. It lacks the earthy, smoky flavors of more complex Pinot Noirs – and their higher prices.
This is great stuff and directly tied to the land this very year.
My favorite so far is the Bouchard ($7.99), which has a full basket of berries and cherries. It is even a touch on the sweet side, perhaps a squeeze of marachino? But Aunt Isabelle and the kids will thank you. Label: Dancing peasants we’ve seen before.
Next comes the Drouhin ($8.99) , which delivers the cherries and blackberries with a round texture, but deeper flavor. Not so much a nouveaux, as it is an early taste of a grown-up Beaujolais. Label: Traditional.
For the more adult palate that wants more pucker with turkey go for the Duboeuf ($9.99). Georges makes a polished nouveau with more tart fruit. Label: Smart and classy, the flowers are stylized into redand gold medallions, like peonies in chinoiserie.
Mommessin ($7.99) was my least favorite, but it deserves a place on the table for sheer fun. Label: The best, a modernist collage including a pop cartoon a la Roy Lichetnstein; all it needs is a thought bubble saying “I left the giblets on the sofa.’’
Turkey Wine III: Gewurztraminer and pumpkin pie
2008 Ste. Michelle Gewurztraminer ($8.99)
Gewurz means “spice”, specifically all those fragrant cinnamons, cloves, coriander and more in the gingerbread end of the spice rack. Those are the flavors we haul out for pies and sweet potatoes this time of year. Without them a house doesn’t smell like the holidays.
The Germans put them in a bottle, and so did their Alsatian neighbors and a few nostalgic Americans up and down the coast. It’s wine everyone is afraid to pronounce but loves to have on the tip of their tongue. Nothing suits a big family grouping better.
Few other white wines match the circus of flavors in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and add their own daring ones as well. It’s a widely used food wine, as is the more noble Riesling, yet its time it had its own day – and that day is Thanksgiving.
P.J. Valckenberg makes an easy-going gewurz from the richly ripe 2006 vintage in Pfalz ($9.99). Northwest vintners in the Columbia Valley like Chateau Ste. Michelle make gewurz with a brighter citrus edge that helps with heavier dishes.
The most elaborate range however is in Alsace. Domaine Zind-Humbrecht treats gewurz with respect and dry refinement starting at its regional level with the tangy 2006 Alsace ($17.99). That’s just the start of a range of ZH vineyards and vintages B-21 stocks, including the late harvest 2005 Hengst ($79.99) which is a holiday feast on its own. Skip the turkey.
Turkey Wine II: For cranberries, it’s Pinot
Most Pinots are made for berries. With pepper to hit spice notes, they are tart enough to cut through heavy sides, and light-bodied enough for the whole family. The best Pinots have a range of earth and fire to match elaborate flavors of a smoked bird with wild mushroom gravy.
A by Acacia Pinot Noir ($15.99)
Wine Spectator’s Laurie Woolever came up with a full case of American Pinot Noirs that would celebrate increased U.S. success with Pinot from Oregon, Russian River, and Central Coast, on down to Santa Barbara (save Burgundies for later). She included two of our great favorites for Pinot Noir with class and value:
2006 Bogle Russian River: Juicy, ripe and as complex as the table. $14.99 ($13.49 by the case)
2007 A by Acacia: California, silky in texture, earthy in taste. $15.99 ($14.39 by the case).
My choice: Invite Fred MacMurray ($15.99) to Thanksgiving. The 2006 Central Coast is full of cherries and berries and spices as friendly as its gentle founder.
Turkey Wine I: Lighten up
2007 Pacific Crest Chardonnay is a best bet to please Chard lovers at Thanksgiving. ($11.99)
The first question in any matching is which comes first, food or wine. On Thanksgiving, food is first and set. And what food it is: gamy and savory (from turkey, giblets and sage), fruity (with cranberries), sweet and creamy (with yams and pumpkin), and spicy (with cinnamon and cloves).
That’s just the classic homespun version, before you add green chilies or oysters. Almost any wine, be it Tempranillo, Dolcetto or Pinot Blanc, will pick up one of those flavors. I’d only rule out a monster Cabernet or knife-sharp Sauvignon Blanc.
Don’t forget the third element to food and wine “pairing”: the people. The company at Thanksgiving is large and diverse, from teenagers to Aunt Isabelle. Pick wines to share, not to brag about. If that’s Merlot ordinaire and a soft Chardonnay, so be it. More to follow…
Bojo nuvo: Just say no to the nay-sayers.
I don’t get hating on Beaujolais Nouveau. The only thing wrong is that the hype leads too many people to overlook Beaujolais not so nouveau. That’s far better stuff aged and released throughout the year with much less fuss but still bargain prices. For me Beaujolais is the next best thing to Burgundy, or looking south, the next best thing to the northern Rhone.
But about that nouveau. It’s light, bright, and affordable. It’s an easy going everyday red and the hullabaloo is popular fun, which is probably why it appalls the snobs and stiffs. When the wine’s great – 2003 and 2005 – hurrah; when it’s not I still get a kick out of the label competition.
2009 Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived and is 7.99 at B-21
The hype may have lost cachet now that the Nouveau shows up in supermarkets from here to Tokyo but the excitement has legitimate roots. You can blame the modern hubbub on Mad Men of the French and English variety. Long before that, the good people of Lyons, home of coq au vin, pike quenelles, and Paul Bocuse loved the Gamay so much they hauled barrels from Beaujolais to their bouchons as soon as they could every fall. Four million Lyonnais can’t be wrong.
Not to mention that it’s the first taste of the 2009 vintage, which already has winemakers dancing.
My latest personal report from France was on Burgundy from my friend Aleth Voraick. She divides her time between St. Petersburg and the family’s Michel Voarick vineyards on the hills above Aloxe Corton on the southern end of the Cote de Beaune.
Just back from the harvest, she says the berries are perfect, a little small, but with deep color. The braintrust at Louis Latour agrees, noting that the weather and growth of the grapes this year tracks exactly the great vintages of 1929 and 1959.
So I’m happy to pop $8 on Nouveaux this year. Besides checking up on our friend Georges Duboeuf, the patron saint of Beaujolais, I’m looking forward to the 2009 Bouchard and Mommessin we will have in house.
After the hullabaloo and the rest of the holidays, we’ll go back to Beaujolais for the best of the villages.