Planning ahead: Wine for Thanksgiving Dinner

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WINE EXPO’s last word on what to serve with the bird:

What to do when twenty or so of your nearest and dearest, their appetites enraged by the waft of Grandmother's secret stuffing recipe coming from the kitchen, are eyeballing all those great wines you've squirreled away for the future (or at least to be appreciated by your knowing friends)? No occasion lends itself to our selection of great food-friendly, crowd-pleasing, popularly priced quaffers than Thanksgiving. We've gone out of our way to find some truly phenomenal wines at incredible prices that are perfect matches with the traditionals and all the trimmings. First, a few basics about the tactics in selecting wines for what is probably the largest and most diverse meal any of us eat in any given year. The main attraction, Thom Gobbler, is content with almost any wine. From lighter whites to hearty reds, just about any well-made wine (or rich ale!) is delicious with roast turkey, a classic no-brainer. The slippery slope begins with the supporting cast, specifically cranberry sauce (sweet and bitter, one of the few foods with more tannin than a Howell Mt. Cab) and the aforementioned Granny's secret stuffing (full of culinary depth charges like cumin, sage, coriander, thyme, raisins, nuts, oysters if you're from the south, and usually a fair bit of salt). These flavors often tend to accentuate the astringency in oaky Chards and make tannic Cabernet / Merlot based wines taste metallic. And, let's face it, many of your guests are just not ready to get their teeth stained with the newest 99 point MonsterCab while you point out that the wine will be great in another forty or fifty years! Through extensive research using the excellent roast chicken with all the trimmings from Marmalade on Montana as a control we have discovered that the best choices include lighter, fruitier whites based on Riesling, Tocai, Pinot Bianco, Sauvignon in its less herbal renditions and reds with lots of fruit, some spice but no tannin, typically Gamay, lighter Chiantis, Teroldego, Bardolino Novello and the fruitier side of the Pinot spectrum.

Having said all that, our #1 pick and largest seller every year is a Novello style Teroldego from Trentino that is not only fresh and fruity like Nouveau (but half the price) but is an amazing BBQ wine the following summer.