With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, there is no better time to start planning your Thanksgiving dinner menu and selecting wines to complement the feast. Historically, the week before Thanksgiving is a great time to buy wine, as many wine merchants run specials on preferred wines.
Now, if you're thinking of pairing a wine with all the Thanksgiving accoutrements - stop! That would be maddening. From appetizers, white and dark turkey meat, mashed potatoes, yams, herb-filled stuffing, cranberry relish, pickled this and peppered that, all the way to pumpkin or pecan pie and Cool Whip fruit salad, is there truly a single wine that can take you seamlessly from start to finish?
Enter sparkling wines, an increasingly popular pairing partner - and not just for the holidays. Sparkling wines bring both elegance and phenomenal food-pairing versatility to virtually any meal but with Thanksgiving, these wines really shine.
Look for dry (not sweet, like Moscato d'Asti), sparkling French or American wine.
The art of pairing wines with food is largely a matter of personal preference, and if you're not ready to try drinking Champagne throughout your entire dinner, there are other options. pinot noir, sangiovese and zinfandel (for red wine lovers) and sauvignon blanc, riesling, gewurztraminer and viognier (for those who prefer white wines) will all complement your Thanksgiving feast.
With white wines, the pairing priority is finding a wine with well-balanced acidity. With reds you are shooting for fairly mild tannins that will support the flavors of the food.
I recommend purchasing some red and some white, because with a large group of people, you will usually have a difference in personal preference.
If you still aren't comfortable going to the store and picking up a bottle of any of the above mentioned varietals, just ask someone working in the store. The employees of liquor stores are generally very knowledgeable (at least one person there will be) about wine, and many groceries (my local Safeway, for instance) have a beverage manager in the liquor department to help you with specific pairing questions.
• Robert Morris is owner and manager at East Valley restaurants Cork, BLD and Stax Burger Bistro. Reach him at (480) 883-3773 or CorkRestaurant.net
Leon Ceniceros posted at 3:37 pm on Wed, Nov 16, 2011.
Fancy...schmansy.....I would kill for a bottle or two or three of....Weibel's Green Hungarian or fizzy Mateus "Rose" in that funny,squatty bottle to go with the "bird".
Oh well....you can't go wrong with Mumm's Extra Dry Champagne...everybody loves it...only has 12.5% alcohol....so you don't have to worry about ...Granny passing out....or Gramps ..in his "cups"...telling his old ...war stories and grossing everybody out at the Thanksgiving table.....or worrying about your chronically "out-of-work" brother in law getting smashed and having an "un-employment crying jag" either.
Hey...if you aren't in the "1%-ers" and can't afford the "real" stuff (champagne from France".....there is nothing wrong with old......Cook's Extra Dry..from Bakersfield or Fresno...or where ever.....it all goes down the same way.............lol.
Hint to the cook....open a bottle of the Cook's before the guests come so you can have a good "buzz" on...pour some into the turkey pan to deglaze (do this only in front of relatives that you dislike but "have to" invite...also the buzz will insure that you won't get ticked off at your cheap mother or sister in law for bringing 3 of the $3.99 pumpkin pies from the Supermarket instead of the home-made ones that she had promised to bring....a good-sized "squirt" of Red-i-Whip, Extra-Rich will make anything taste good be sure and cover up all the "shinola brown" pumpkin pie "skin" (another hint = before you do the Red-i-Whip routine on all the pie slices...put the nozzle in your mouth and give yourself a big squirt...you deserved it ...girl !!!)