What Wine with Thanksgiving Dinner?

What Wine with Thanksgiving?

Ahhh, Thanksgiving dinner: the turkey, the dressing, the gravy, the sweet potatoes, the cranberries, the green bean casserole, and the pumpkin pie. The question is: “What wine goes with all that?” Well, it’s a tough question to answer.

First, let me say that I agree with the “your favorite wine” philosophy. If you really like Cabernet Sauvignon, then go for it. I just don’t think there is anything in the typical Thanksgiving dinner that will enhance the Cabernet, and vice-versa.

Second, Thanksgiving is an American holiday, so the wine should come from America too. No, I don’t mean native American grapes (the idea of Concord wine with turkey makes me shudder). I mean European grapes grown in the United States. Wait, some of you readers are saying: “What about Beaujolais Nouveau?” I know that the release of Beaujolais Nouveau seems to coincide with Thanksgiving dinner very nicely, and that it may be one of the few wines that actually complements cranberry sauce, but if it were released a month earlier or a month later, it wouldn’t be on your Thanksgiving wine radar.

My third parameter is that big reds are out. That means Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Petite Verdot, Meritage, other Bordeaux style blends, and big fat Zinfandels are not good matches (though the leaner, more balanced Zins may have a place).

So, what’s left? Please don’t reach for that Chardonnay just yet. In fact, don’t reach for it at all. Most Chardonnay today is grown in the wrong place so it doesn’t have the acid to balance it with food. Then it is over oaked, and put through full malolactic fermentation, so that it becomes more of a cocktail wine than a food wine. If you are wondering how to tell if the Chardonnay you are buying is grown in the “wrong place”, determine what that producer’s star red wine. If it’s something other than Pinot Noir, chances are great that your Chardonnay is grown in the wrong place. You could serve the Chardonnay as an aperitif, but how about a Methode Champenoise sparking wine? Bubbly is always a good choice for a special occasion, and sparkling wine usually has enough acidity to be served with food. If you plan on a sparkling wine with Thanksgiving dinner, choose one of the toasty-yeasty ones, not the delicate lemony ones.

Believe it or not, there are white wines other than Chardonnay. Sauvignon Blanc may be the right choice for the green bean casserole and the stuffing/dressing if you make yours with oysters. Roussanne or a Roussanne / Marsanne blend would be an excellent pairing with white meat turkey, mashed potatoes, and a stuffing/dressing that is not overwhelming (no oysters, no red meat sausage, and herbs “in check”). Gewurztraminer, either dry or off-dry would work for the same food items. A Semillon, if you can find a good one, might be the best of all, but fewer and fewer producers seem to be making it. Albariño, a Spanish white variety, is becoming popular, and I can imagine the right one being a good choice for Thanksgiving, but I have some research to do; maybe next year.

As for red wine, Pinot Noir is a great choice, and if I were only going to have one wine, this would probably be it. It should be a good Pinot Noir  though; this is no time for a bargain-basement wine.  Neither Merlot nor Syrah would be my choice, but I can’t fault either. Zinfandel, so long as it’s a balanced one, would be an excellent choice if the stuffing/dressing has nuts or sausage, or if the yams are on the spicy side, rather than of the marshmallow-topped variety. Grenache would also be a fine choice, especially if the turkey is smoked. Sangiovese or Tempranillo may be interesting options. The trouble is many winemakers tend to use too much new oak in the aging process for these wines, or add Cabernet Sauvignon. These winemakers seem to think that both give these wines more “structure”, but ruin them for our purpose. Barbera, because of its natural acidity, would be an interesting selection, but it goes so well with tomato-sauced Italian food that I tend to want to save it for Lasagna.

Then there is rosé. A dry rosé goes with a myriad of foods, and may be an alternative here. This is especially true if the gravy or potatoes came out a little too salty.

So where does that leave us? With the turkey breast and potatoes, a white with good body (read as no light-bodied wines) and good acidity (read as forget most Chardonnay).  With the dark meat and the gravy, I’d go for a Pinot Noir or a Grenache. The stuffing/dressing pairing really depends on what’s included. If oysters or sausage are included, then your choices may be limited, but otherwise, a full-bodied white or a light- to medium-bodied red will work fine. With sweet potatoes or yams, well, if they have marshmallows on top, no wine is ideal, but a medium-bodied red won’t be overwhelmed. With a slightly spicier serving (look up Ancho Sweet-Potato purée on Epicurious.com), then Zinfandel comes to the fore. With green bean casserole, well, I omit the green bean casserole, because I am not a fan, but if you insist, a Sauvignon Blanc or a Pinot Noir is your best choice. With the cranberries, sparkling wine may be your only reasonable option.  If you are limiting yourself to two wines, I’d go with a Pinot Noir and a good sparkler. A Grenache and a Gewurztraminer would be my second choice.

For all the troubles with the main part of the dinner, dessert is easy: late-harvest Gewurztraminer with pumpkin pie or late-harvest Riesling with apple pie. Bon appetite!

"A Day in the Dust" -- Incredible Cabs and Real Values

By Mac McCarthy

SavvyTaste.com

At "A Day in the Dust" tasting of Rutherford, CA Cabernets, hosted by the Rutherford Dust Society, I found some incredible-tasting Cabs -- no surprise, though these were even more spectacular than I anticipated -- but I also found some incredible value prices, which I certainly didn't  expect -- especially from such elite wineries.  

WHAT'S THE RUTHERFORD DUST SOCIETY?

The Rutherford Dust Society is the odd-sounding name of a group promoting wines (especially but not exclusively Cabernet Sauvignons) made from grapes grown in the area around Rutherford, a small town in the middle of the Napa Valley. Society  members are the most famous name brands in Napa wine: Beaulieu, Inglenook, Heitz, Honig, Neal, Peju, Raymond, St Clement, Staglin, and others.

Andy Beckstoffer and Andre Tchelistcheff, 1989

The Society gets its name from a famous remark, "It takes Rutherford dust to grow great Cabernet," made by the most influential Napa winemaker of the 20th century, André Tchelistcheff. You may not know that name if you aren't involved in the Napa wine business -- but you will have heard of some of his works. A Russian making wines for top French winemakers, he was lured to the United States by Georges De Latour in 1938 to become the winemaker for Georges' Beaulieu Vineyards. Tchelistcheff had a huge influence on the winemaking techniques now used in the Valley -- especially for Cabernets, his specialty. He created one of the signature wine labels of the area: Georges De Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Beaulieu Vineyards.

The Rutherford Dust Society, established in 1994, works to promote and encourage the highest standards in winemaking, to maintain the reputation of the historic Rutherford district AVA. (The history of the Rutherford area in winemaking makes fascinating reading .) The Society is also working on restoration of the Napa River and its watershed.

Rutherford, Napa Valley

There were 36 winemakers at this year's event, titled "A Day in the Dust: A Tasting of 2008 Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Blends," at Francis Ford Coppola's Rubicon Estate Winery in Rutherford. This is a tasting for the trade and the press, who turned out in force, and it was a delight to have the winemakers and winery owners themselves pouring.

BLACK CHERRY WITH CHOCOLATE POWDER--AND SOME GREAT PRICES

The common taste element of the wines this day is black cherry: The nose on most of these wines was aromatic black cherry, dusted with chocolate powder. And the taste followed through on this theme: Rich, mouth-filling, intense, with nice finishes, a balance of acid, and in most cases with enough tannin to make it clear that these delicious wines will be even more spectacular in a few years when the tannins calm and reveal the fruit in all its glory. When you think of a big red wine, these are the wines you're thinking of, and are the reason that you love this style of wine.

Each winery showed one or two Cabs, plus in most cases one or two Sauvignon Blancs (and one had a Sauv Blanc dessert wine that I regret not getting to) as well as some Merlots, and a few Pinots under the table.

I found dozens of the most wonderful, delicious, flavorful, rich and delightful red wines you would ever want to drink -- the cream of the Napa crop -- and the list prices ranged from just over $100 down to a not-quite-believable low of $24, with most bottles in the $50 to $75 range. In a day of over-priced wines, it's remarkable to find values from small, elite wineries. Every wine I tasted that day was worth every nickel of its list price, and more.

Which is as it should be -- and too often isn't. Wine prices should be a rough guide to how good you can expect a wine to be. Yet how often do you decide to buy a special wine for that party or that gift, pay that $50 or $75 for a "fine wine" and get -- a big disappointment. That $50 Cabernet Sauvignon is too tight, to tough, to difficult to enjoy. That $100 bottle of French Bordeaux is so "austere" -- read, "completely lacking in  fruit" -- that you just can't enjoy it. How often does the wine industry send our everyday winedrinkers, defeated, back to their sub-$10 wines from Trader Joe's, convinced there's some kind of game going on and they don't know the rules.

Well, if they had a chance to taste these top-notch Rutherford wines, they would find the wines they are looking for -- and at fair prices. Too bad they probably won't be able to find them. As always at these grand tastings, the majority of these finest of wines are made in small lots of a few hundred cases -- the cream of the winery's crop made in quantities too small to show up in your local Liquor Barn or supermarket, or even in your fine-wine shop if you live outside Northern California. And that's heartbreaking. These wines are ringing endorsements of what California wine can be, of what the Napa Valley is famous for, and of the wonders of "Rutherford Dust."

This tiny supply, of such wonderful wines, at such honest prices, gives wine lovers a powerful incentive to join a few of the winery wine clubs so you can get in on the limited allotments. (If you can even squeeze into their clubs!)

Sojourner

A ROUNDUP OF SOME WONDERFUL CABERNETS AND CAB BLENDS

Here are a few of the highlights, with retail price and production level where I remembered to get that info. (Many of these wines are not even listed on the vendor Web sites.)

Heitz Cellar 2005 Trailside Cabernet Sauvignon - $70 - Big and tannic, round and mouthfilling.

Heitz Cellar 1995 Trailside Cabernet Sauvignon - Wonderfully subdued compared to 2005. Nice nose. I liked the 2005 more.

Honig Vineyard and Winery 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon - Campbell Vineyard - $75.

Hunnicutt 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford, $75, 125 cases, to be released next spring - wonderful aroma, delicious.

JRE

John Robert Eppler Wines JRE 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford - wonderful aroma, very rich and round.

John Robert Eppler Wines JRE 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford - Nice black cherry all around, very drinkable.

John Robert Eppler Wines JRE 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Reserve - The black-cherry sensation a little more intense in this one.

MCG Cellars - McGah Family Wineries 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford - $42 - 275 cases - That incredible nose and flavor of dark cherries dusted with chocolate powder! Rich, smooth, unctuous -- sensational.

Meander 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon - $65 - 400 cases - Incredible aroma - with that French liquorice-chemical-tire note. Rich.

Meander 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Morisoli Vineyard, Rutherford - $124 - 40 cases - Wonderful aroma, rich, corner-filling, with fine tannins. A standout.

Neal Family Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford, $75 - The only one I tasted here that didn't thrill me, due to a slightly odd note in the nose that carried through in the taste - don't know what it was, but it disappointed me.

Pedemonte Cellars 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford - $26 - 360 cases - A wonderful taste with a loooong finish -- a wonderful wine in every respect, plus the price is hard to believe. This is not half as good as the other wines, but is exactly on their level and maybe even a bit above (that long finish is wonderful).

Peju 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Reserve -$100  - Yes; yes, that is very much a delicious Cabernet. Miss Lisa Peju, the icon in its ads, was there pouring, along with her mother.

Peju

Quintessa 2008 "Quintessa" blend 87% Cab, plus Merlot, Petite Verdot, Cab Franc, and 1% Carmenere. $150 - 8,000 cases. Good. Not the best here, but good. I was surprised that it was the most expensive Cab being shown; I wouldn't have guessed it. I was also taken aback that they said they made 8,000 cases -- eight thousand cases? Yes. Of a $150 wine? Yes. Wow. Nice work if you can get it. Why? How? I got a blank look, as if there is no marvel in superior wines produced in tiny lots for half the price.

Raymond Vineyards 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford - $60 - 60 cases - Nice and round, but it's still early for this one, the tannins are still too high.

Raymond Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford - 65 cases - Yes, that extra year helps. Good wines, but not I wasn't as impressed as I expected to be.

Rubicon Estates 2008 Rubicon - $250 - Mostly Cab. Creamy, velvety - a quiet, thoughtful wine - I had to pay attention to appreciate it.

Rubicon Estates 2008 CASK Cabernet Sauvignon - $75 - A nice cherry nose, good taste.

Sojourn Cellars 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Beckstoffer Vineyards Georges III -- $95 - 140 cases - Wow. Rich, sweet -- Zowie! That's a lot of wine for under $100!

Sojourn Cellars 2008 Cuvee -- Great! Rich and delicious.

St. Clement Vineyards 2008 Star Vineyard Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon - $80 -  Not much nose (unusual in this crowd), but lots of fruit flavor, with a tannic tang that suggests this should lay down for a bit.

Sullivan Vineyards 2008 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford - $55 - A good middle, with a nice tannic backbone.

Sullivan Vineyards 2008 Coeur de Vigne, Rutherford - $90 - 49% Cab, 40% Merlot, the rest Petit Verdot and Cab Franc - A nicely balanced wine.

Sullivan Vineyards 2008 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford - $100, club  only. Good, again with the tannic bite. All these Sullivan wines need to lie down for a few years and think about it.

Tres Sabores 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Perspective - $85 - Silky! (No, I don't know what "Rutherford Perspective" means. Is it like "Seaview" where there's no sea?)

Tres Sabores 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford - $80 - Same vineyard - no nose, but black raspberry on the palate.

SOME OTHER REALLY GREAT RUTHERFORD REDS

The Rutherford district produces quite a few other red wines besides Cabernet Sauvignon -- Merlot and Pinot Noir as well as Cab Franc and four or five others. Here are standouts from this tasting.

Sojourn Cellars Pinot Noir - 2009 Rodgers Creek Vineyard, Sonoma -- an under-the-table wine that's not produced from Rutherford grapes. - $48, 575 cases.  This is exactly what I like in a Pinot: Light, flavorful, with a long finish.

Sullivan Vineyards 2008 Merlot Rutherford - Very, very nice: The fruit shows up in the middle and the finish.

Sullivan Vineyards  2008 Reserve Merlot Rutherford - $100, 100 cases, for wine-club members only (you tease!). Round, with a tannic bite.

Tres Sabores 2008 Zinfandel Rutherford Estate - $35 - This is a Wow! with more finish than a typical Zin -- in fact, it's not typical of a Zin but boy is it good!

.

AND TASTY RUTHERFORD SAUVIGNON BLANCS

You'd think it a waste of the most valuable Cab-growing dirt in the country to raise Sauvignon Blanc grapes instead, but the Rutherford growers obviously don't agree. Most of the top-of-the-line wineries showing at this event had Sauv Blancs from grapes grown in Rutherford on offer.

The 2010 Sauv Blancs, newly bottled, were for the most part very similar to one another. Each had that Sauv Blanc nose and the citrusy flavor typical of this wine when it's made well. They were not as stony as the New Zealand style (which is good because I'm getting tired of that style), but were tasty, with a nice light tang that will go well with food, or on the deck on a hot summer day. Here are some I tasted, all 2010 Rutherford  Sauvignon Blancs except where noted.

94574 Brand - $18 - Nice citrusy flavor.

Alpha Omega - $36 - Slightly different from its rivals, a bit more complex, a good finish - 275 cases.

Alpha Omega "1155 Rutherford" - $52 - Also complex, a bit "French," which is a good thing.

Fleury Estate - $50, 150 cases - Nice acid, a light tasty tang.

Frog's Leap - $18 - Nice acid tang, palate clearing - bring out your Chinese food!

Honig Vineyards - 2009 - $25, 1300 cases - A little malolactic gives this and interestingly different taste - a bit of pineapple?

John Robert Eppler (JRE) Wines - 2010 Fume Blanc - French style, nice fruit nose, a bit less citrusy, but with a light tang -- mild, easy to drink. Didn't get a price - and their Web site doesn't even mention this white. Hmm.

Long Meadow Ranch - $18 - classic SB nose, flavor - good.

Conspire- $28; mild, tasty, and pleasant. (Amy Aikin puts her reds are under the brand name 'Meander'.)

Round Pond Estate - $24 - Pleasant, a good drink.

Rutherford Grove - 2009 Rutherford Bench - didn't get the price - Seemed a bit richer than the others, somehow.

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What do you think? Which are your favorite Cabs? Pass this article along, and subscribe above for our occasional wine reviews and opinions.  --Mac 

BAWDY: Old Cabs/Old Bordeaux Tasting

I'm catching up on past tastings, as you will see. This was a February 2009 tasting of one of my wine groups, BAWDY ("Bay Area Wine Drinkers and-a-Y"). Hosted by Brian and Jill Oana at their Alameda CA home, the theme they chose for this BYOB was "OLD CABS/OLD BORDEAUX."

Well, who's going to miss a thing like that??

Of course, this means "old" in affordable terms -- we're not rich and our cellars are relatively lacking in age-depth. But here's what we 20 or so people came up with -- and a remark by me about the ones that jumped out at me. If I didn't remark on it, I either didn't get to taste it, or I don't remember it.

Here they are, listed by age:

1974 Inglenook Cab Limited Cask A-3, Napa

--over the hill but not awful

1986 Simi Cab Commemorative Edition, Alexander Valley

--fantastic!

1991 Cline Mourvedre, Contra Costa County (CA)

--good

1995 Chateau Clerc Milon Grand Cru, Pauillac

--very good

1995 Sterling Vineyard Reserve Cab blend, Napa

--outstanding!

1996 Lolonis Cab, Redwood Valley, Mendocino

--good

1997 Kiona Cab, Washington State

--outstanding!

1997 Inniskillin Gamay Noir, Niagara Peninsula

--a whaaa? but tasty!

1998 BV Rutherford Cab, Napa

--outstanding -- no surprise!

2000 D’Agostini Cab, Alexander Vly

2000 Close Du Bois Merlot, Sonoma

--very good

2001 White Oak Cab blend, Napa

--good

2001 William Hill Reserve Cab, Napa

2002 Retzlaff Cab, Livermore Vly

--good

2002 St. Supery Cab, Napa

2003 Mount Eden Vineyard Cab blend, Santa Cruz Mtns

--good

2005 L’Ecole No 41 Perigee Seven Hills Cab blend, Walla Walla, Washington

--this is supposed to be fab, but I didn't get to taste it, darn it.

2005 Rodrigue Molyneaux Cab, Livermore CA

2006 Chateau Haut-Sorillon, Bordeaux Superieur

2006 Educated Guess Cab, Napa

2006 Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz-Cab, S. Australia

2006 St. Francis, Chard, Sonoma

2006 DeCanal Montepulciano D’Abruzzo (unopened--just too many wines!)

2007 Robert Mondavi Private Select Cab, Calif.

Great evening!

2007 Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon: Another Good One from Two-Buck Chuck

Image by Chris Devers via Flickr

Once again, a tasty red from Charles Shaw: I just opened the 2007 California Cabernet Sauvignon. Actually, it was a little rough when I first opened it, so I put the rubber air-suction cork back on it, and a few days later tried it again.

And it was tasty: Lots of appropriate fruit, good body; altogether, a very drinkable $12 wine. That of course costs $1.99 at Trader Joe's.

The problem with reviewing Two-Buck Chuck wines is that you absolutely never know what you're going to find in any given bottle. Because Fred Franzia gets his grapes and his wine from all over the place -- including lots of wines on deep discount from distressed winemakers and grape growers -- but doesn't specify anything other than year and "California." This presumably is to protect those distressed winemakers who are fire-sale-ing a wine that might sell in good times for ten or twenty dollars.

So this week the $2 Charles Shaw Cab may be some bulk wine or grape producing a ho-hum box-wine of a bottle just about worth the two bucks. Next week, having burned through that plonk, Fred ships out a few hundred or thousand cases of a wine that would, in better times, sell for five or ten times that two dollars.

You don't know, so you have to do the Two-Buck-Chuck-Parking-Lot-Shuffle: Buy a bottle at Trader Joe's, go out to your car, take out the cork, taste it - and if you like it, go back inside and buy a case. For $25 the case.

Fine, but with the red wines in particular, you run into this problem: Some reds need to sit in the bottle for a while; or they need air before they taste right. The parking-lot taste test won't tell you that.

Instead, you buy some random bottles from time to time, and a few months (or years, in one case for me) later you open a bottle and it tastes better than it has any reason to taste, at that price. Or it's harsh upon opening, but softens with air.

Wow, you run over to your blog and write it up. What good does that do your reader? You bought it -- when? Last January? What are they supposed to do? Go over to Trader Joe's and buy it? The Cab that's on the pallets at Trader Joes today is most definitely *not* the Cab that you picked up last January! It could be good -- or ok -- or terrific. You can't know!

Because the wine in the bottle is, basically, random (except for the specific varietel), this is like walking down the aisle the picking up bottles at random. Fun, actually -- especially at these prices. But random. And maddening if you're trying to recommend things to people.

(The whites, by the way, don't react this way quite as much because their chemistry is different; they don't all need to age or get a lot of air. You can often tell pretty quickly whether that bottle of Chard is worth buying a case of.)

So the only good this blog posting will do you, the wine-enjoying reader, is this: If you happen to have some 2007 Charles Shaw Cab in your wine closet -- maybe you bought a case and are still working through it -- go ahead and open it up, give it some air, and enjoy -- it's ready!