Picking Wines to Go With Turkey, Crazy Relatives: Elin McCoy
Every year I hear the same anxiety over what wine to serve with Thanksgiving dinner, but this year friends started eliciting suggestions in mid-October.
Now I'm even receiving e-mails from wine shops promising ``Thanksgiving made easy'' if I buy the special pack of wines they claim they've already tested with all the fixins'.
Chicago chain Binny's Beverage Depot takes reassurance a step further with an event ($10) at one of its branches on Nov. 22. It's offering tastes of 50 different wines alongside bites of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberry sauce so you can preview pairings before you buy any bottles. They're hoping you'll walk out with at least one. (Stores hosting similar events can be found through LocalWineEvents.com.)
Allow me to weigh in with my advice, based on years of trial-and-error experiments.
What makes everyone so uneasy about picking a Thanksgiving dinner wine is the sheer number of dishes with sharply contrasting tastes and what seem like three dozen flavor components. Worst of all, this sweet and savory culinary mash-up is all served all at once.
Yet selecting wine to go with the food is only half the battle. Finding something that's appropriate for the close friends and often crazy relatives around the table is just as important and probably twice as difficult. The guests are inevitably as diverse -- and as clashing -- as the food flavors on the table.
Meet the Family
One of my aunts wants a chardonnay no matter what food is served, and her favorites are not ones I particularly care to imbibe. Among my friends are a couple of unreformed snobs who are convinced only French wine is worth swallowing, yet my firm Thanksgiving rule is to drink American on this national holiday.
Do you have a sister who believes that red wine gives her headaches, or a vegan daughter who won't drink a wine fined with egg whites? Many students home from college, in my experience, would rather glug some hideous seasonal beer like pumpkin ale.
Add in the financial crisis for another layer of complication this year. If you splurge and serve your best wines, will that look like shameless extravagance or a welcome treat to your just-downsized brother-in-law?
I long ago gave up on the one-perfect-wine solution for Thanksgiving food and guests. Instead, I serve a variety of highly versatile, mid-priced ($15 to $30) bubbly, white and red wines all at once, just like the dishes. But that doesn't mean any old wine will do.
Mix of Flavors
Everyone's centerpiece, the roast turkey, is a mix of flavors itself, with bland white and rich dark meat both mild enough to pair with a wide range of light to medium-bodied reds and whites.
It's the sides that really tune my choices. Thanksgiving features notorious wine-killing dishes that no self-respecting foodie savors at any other time of the year -- like baked sweet potatoes topped with gooey sweet browned marshmallows, or an aged aunt's lime Jell-O salad laced with carrot strips.
My Thanksgiving table isn't complete without my friend Carroll's rich creamed onions topped with cheese, my son's garlic mashed potatoes (very heavy on the garlic), my tart-sweet cranberry-orange sauce, an antique family recipe.
The wines that work best with these and our other sides are a combo of fruit and spice, low in tannin, with little or no oak and a bit of acidity so they add refreshment through a long meal. Powerful, high-alcohol cabernets and syrahs fight the food –- and lose.
Festive Bubbly
Flutes of bubbly put family and friends in a festive, socializing mood. This year, I'm pouring coral-pink Mumm Napa Brut Rose ($24), which has enough flavor for spicy appetizers as well as the rest of the meal.
I'll put out four whites and reds, so everyone has plenty of choices. A tangy riesling with cutting acidity -- either 2007 Chateau Ste. Michelle-Dr. Loosen Washington State ($20) or 2007 Dr. Frank Finger Lakes ($18) -- is a crowd pleaser. For the essential chardonnay, my pick is juicy, round 2006 Bouchaine ($25).
Vibrantly fruity-earthy pinot noirs such as 2006 Saintsbury Carneros ($30) are the most versatile reds, though Sokol Blosser's recently released blend of pinot, syrah and zinfandel, Meditrina 5 ($18), is juicy, round and easy to like.
The wine geek in me insists on a sweet wine such as 2005 Quady Orange Muscat Essencia ($20) to accompany the pumpkin, mince and the tooth-achingly sweet pecan pie. At that point in the festivities, no one really needs it. Yet it's a nice excuse to raise another glass in thanks for all that brings us together.