We took four wines on a Thanksgiving test drive at the
October food and wine pairing dinner last week at Cooking with Class – an
Australian white, an Italian rosé and two southern hemisphere reds. In the end,
it was a photo finish as each wine held its own as a pairing contender for
Thanksgiving dishes.
As with so many other aspects of wine enjoyment,
Thanksgiving wine choices reflect personal tastes and preferences. Do you
relish a complementary or contrasting pairing? Would you rather stick with one wine to carry the meal or do you prefer a variety of wines to pair with Thanksgiving’s schizoid sides? What about lighter wines to balance
the heft of holiday dishes? Or do you crave savage reds that will wage battle
with gustatory gut-busters?
We began the face-off with the Yalumba 2012 Y Series
Viognier, served with Chef Dave Schy’s warm shrimp and mango salad. This medium-bodied
charmer has aromas of ginger, lychee and pear with just the right amount of
lightness for turkey. On the palate, the wine offers a refreshing burst of
spice and pineapple to pair with exotic side dishes, too. Winemaker Louisa Rose
knows how to coax goodness from unpredictable Viognier grapes at Yalumba,
Australia’s oldest family-owned winery, where she makes Viognier in a variety
of styles. The Y series is stainless steel fermented but aged for a few months
on its lees. Such aging gives the wine a balanced richness that won’t fatigue
your palate, as with Viognier styles that are weighted down by too much oak. Make
a toast to Thanksgiving’s roots with a Viognier from Virginia or try another
domestic winner from California’s Central Coast tangent winery.
To pair with our next course of butternut squash soup, we
served a crisp and zesty rosé made from 100% Barbera grapes grown in the Asti
province of Piedmont. As I’ve described before, rosé is a favorite choice to
carry a Thanksgiving meal, and this rosé was no exception. Made by an Italian
family with Coachella Valley roots, the aptly named Bella Blush is as
dangerously delicious as winemaker Lorenzo Lombardelli promised. If you’re
stymied by Thanksgiving wine suggestions that seem all over the map, take a
short-cut to holiday magic with a dry, red-fruited rosé with crisp, mineral or
citrus overtones.
Red wines don’t fare as well with many Thanksgiving dishes,
especially tannic reds or those with blowtorch alcohol levels. Instead, we
opted for the medium-bodied Neil Ellis 2010 Sincerely Shiraz from South
Africa’s Stellenbosch and Darling regions. This is a balanced, lightly oaked
wine with dark berry, spice and fruitcake aromas and flavors that do justice to
many holiday dishes. And it’s red, for all the whiners at your table who won’t
be satisfied with a white or rosé.
We closed the meal with a plummy, full-bodied Malbec from
Argentina’s Altocedro winery. The 2012 Año Cero has a captivated nose of
lavender and blackberries. Bright on the palate, the wine has weight that’s
balanced by a mineral streak and enough acidity to keep the palate refreshed
and ready for more. Malbecs have the fruitiness to pair with many Thanksgiving
fruit-accented side dishes without the heft or tannins of Cabernet or the
earthiness of many old-world standard-bearers.
So there you have it: four very different wines that will
bring wine pairing pleasure to your Thanksgiving meal. Join us at Cork & Fork and see how well all four match up to a variety of dishes or try a glass
at the bar.
If you want to explore more Thanksgiving wine pairing options,
take a look at these earlier posts:
We’ll explore a new group of holiday wine pairings at our
November food and wine dinner set for Sunday, November 24 at 6 PM. Make your
reservations here or by calling 760.777.1161. See you then!
