We've Got Thanksgiving Pre-Paired

By David W. Brown

With many states just beginning to slowly open back up, there’s a good chance that Thanksgiving will be the first time you’ve seen extended family in quite a while. It is going to be an extra-special holiday and, for that reason, it’s worth putting in a little extra effort. Who brings what casserole is probably already decided. Wine is an area, though, where a little care can go a long way.

If you are new to wine — if your customary Thanksgiving involves a countertop of two-liter bottles of Coke and Sprite — the wine section can be a little intimidating. Maybe you’ve never reached further than bottles with bare feet or kangaroos on them (and if you like those bottles, there is nothing wrong with that). Still, nothing says “occasion” like wine a little off the beaten path.

Here is some advice to help you stroll the wine aisles with swagger. With regard to seasonality, as summer fades to fall, what we drink moves from fruity frozen things to the more fireplace-friendly bottles of Pinot Noir or heavier Chardonnays. Don’t feel bound by this, though — a sparkling Rosé uncorked while watching a November sunset is as enjoyable in the fall as it is at a July lunch with friends. “Summer water” indeed.

When it comes to what you’re “supposed” to drink, the first rule is this: Drink what you like! Everyone has a different palate, so don’t worry about what some label says, or what this article says, or what wine gets however many points by this wine critic or that. (Can any human being really detect the difference in a wine that gets a 92, versus another that gets a 93? I mean, come on.)

The second rule, if there’s going to be one, is this: Explore the wine aisles. You’ll notice little tags on the shelves that offer advice, things like: “notes of blackberry” or “cherry and tobacco.” The wine won’t taste like cherry juice with cigars in it; they’re just that: notes. It’s no different than taking a bite of pizza. I bet if you try, you can “find” the tomato sauce flavor, or the cheese, or the bread. It’s all chewed up in your mouth, but your tongue can work things out all the same.

The idea when enjoying wine as its own creature is to tease out those oenological fingerprints, to find what makes the wine unique. The soil of some vineyards has been carefully cultivated for centuries, and sun and rain and air quality vary from year to year. Every wine’s “terroir” (or natural environment and farming practices) is a little different, which makes the grapes grown from that ground equally different. Moreover, wine changes in the bottle over time. That doesn’t mean a wine must be kept for 20 years before being “good.” As author Matt Kramer has written, that’s like saying your child cannot be appreciated until he or she is an adult. Rather, there are different things to love and admire about your child — and your wine — at every age.

Not every wine is sculpted to last a hundred years, though. Some are bottled to be bought and opened right then and there. (Well, wait until you get home.) That’s why some have screw tops; it isn’t a sign of inferiority, but rather, an unambiguous marker of something that’s ready for pouring, so get on with it.

There’s a lot more to wine, of course, which is why there are simultaneously a couple of millennia of wine writing, and also the feeling that we are just getting started. But that should get you going for a while and set you up for a successful Thanksgiving wine shopping experience.

PAIRING YOUR TURKEY

To learn how to select bottles based on what you are serving as your holiday centerpiece meal, I asked Julie Joy, the director of beer, wine and spirits for Rouses Markets, and a 20-year veteran of the trade. She says if you want to make a proper show of it, there’s an ideal order when uncorking wines at Friendsgivings, Thanksgivings, parties and gatherings.

“I feel like everyone in the whole world should always start off with a little sparkling wine,” says Joy. “Any meal, any party — it has to be a sparkler.”

For most of us, sparkling wines mean celebration. They are the perfect way to elevate the mood and infuse joviality into a gathering. Joy recommends a sparkling Brut Rosé from the McBride Sisters. A sparkling wine is what you might think of as a Champagne (though true Champagne only comes from the Champagne region of France). Brut — pronounced brute — is a dry, crisp sparkling wine. A Rosé is a pink wine. Though different wineries make Rosé wines with different processes, the most common way is the “skin contact method.” When black grapes are crushed, the skin remains in contact with the grape juice for only a short period of time (less than a day). The skin is then removed rather than fermenting with the wine, but this brief contact gives this variety of wine its blushing color.

When it’s time to sit down for dinner, the best wine to drink depends on what meat is on the big silver platter. If you’re going for a traditional Thanksgiving turkey cooked in the oven, look no further than a bottle of Pinot Noir. (In casual usage, when you hear someone talk about a “Burgundy,” or a “red Burgundy,” they are usually talking about Pinot Noir from the Burgundy region of France. A “white Burgundy” is invariably a Chardonnay from that region, which produces the finest bottles of that variety in the world.)

“Pinot Noir is a lighter style wine that pairs perfectly with a lighter meat,” Joy says, noting that for the holiday season, Rouses Markets will sell an exclusive line of Pinot Noir from A to Z Wineworks called Engraved. “What I like about Engraved is that it hits you with just a little bit of spice,” she says, “It has a really balanced quality to it.”

(Balance in wine refers to the tension of fruitiness versus acidity. Too little fruit, and a wine is “thin.” Too much fruit, and it is “flabby.”)

If you decide to smoke your turkey this year, you have options. When it comes to pairing wine and food in general, there are two ways to go. In the case of any spicy food, you can run in the opposite direction and grab a wine with a slight sweetness to it to balance things out, or you can run in the same direction and drink a “spice booster.” In the case of a smoked turkey, a Shiraz would really up the intensity level. On the other hand, a good “opposite” wine would be, again, that McBride Sisters Brut Rosé, which would be a refreshing counterbalance to the turkey’s smokiness.

Fried turkeys present an interesting opportunity. First, you can burn your house down while preparing them, in which case I suggest you go for any wine in reach, and lots of it. But if your house remains standing and there are no fatalities, the key to pairing fried turkey with wine is to consider that delicious, crispy fat on the bird. To really make it sing, you’ll want to uncork a bottle packing a little acidity — something like a Sauvignon Blanc.

Rouses has just started carrying a label called Sun Goddess, which is a collaboration between Fantinel Winery in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, and Mary J. Blige, the singer. “She’s getting a lot of really good press from it,” says Joy. “What I like about Sun Goddess is that it’s got some tropical notes to it, and a really nice acidity and smoothness at the end. That would balance the fried part of the meal.”

Let’s say for Thanksgiving dinner, though, eating one animal at a time just isn’t your thing, or isn’t enough, or you are just really bad at making decisions in general and have chosen: D. All of the above. Turducken it is! (Did you know that in England, where geese are more prevalent than turkeys, Gooducken is the local favorite? Now you do!) In terms of flavor, turducken is…all over the place, to put it mildly.

“I would go with a big bad cab for turducken,” says Joy, referring to those loud, full-bodied bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon for which California is famous. “You’re going to want something that cuts through every single one of those meats, and especially the game part of it.” She recommends a label from DAOU Vineyards, which is located on the Central Coast of California. Their 2018 bottle, which is very affordable, is getting major press right now, including a score of 92 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate magazine, the industry magazine that rates wines on a scale from 50 to 100. (You get 50 points for just being a wine!)

The DAOU 2018, Joy says, “is a very consistently well-done cab that, if people aren’t drinking it, they should.”

As winter finally makes an appearance in the South (it’s going to snow in New Orleans for Christmas this year — you read it here first) there is, lastly, the best option for Thanksgiving dinner — the option everyone really wants, no matter how hard they pretend to like your ovenroasted turkey. That option is turkey gumbo. And since everyone will be celebrating your choice of cuisine anyway, what better wine to pair it with than a sparkler? If gumbo is on the menu, put a few bottles of Prosecco in your shopping cart. It’s not a super-sweet sparkling wine and has a crisp, clean finish.

“We have some really great Proseccos in the store right now,” says Joy. “One is called Standard Issue Prosecco Cuvée No. 6. It’s perfect for something like turkey gumbo. The wine could be an aperitif, but in this case, it’s a fantastic palate cleanser. You want to taste your gumbo, you want to taste those spices — and a Prosecco is the way to go.”

There’s no need to settle for a single type of wine, though. Another good option for turkey gumbo would be a Riesling, which is a white, flowery wine. In particular, Chateau Ste Michelle has a lovely line of Rieslings on Rouses store shelves, and each would make its presence known while still allowing the gumbo to shine.

Thanksgiving this year is going to be a renewal and, with any luck, a turning of the page. It’s been a hard 2020, and we could all use a drink. But if you’re going to do it, do it right. Set out a few bottles of wine for the holiday, and let them elevate your meal and mood and usher in a new, hard-won year.