Great Wine Pairings for Thanksgiving

It’s always one of the questions regarding the Thanksgiving meal - “What wine should I serve?” It’s a great question that doesn’t have just one good answer. It has lots of good answers!

Conventional wisdom says that with the traditional turkey you must serve a white wine.  And white wines do go well with turkey.  Traditional white wine choices include:

• Gewürztraminer - One of the Thanksgiving favorites. This is a highly aromatic wine with floral touches and spice notes such as cloves and nutmeg.

• Riesling - This has spicy, fruity flavors with touches of peaches or apricots and a floral fragrance that compliments the meal well.

• Sauvignon Blanc - Light and crisp, with grassy or herbaceous flavors and higher acidity. This wine goes well with all the rich foods on the table.

• Pinot Grigio - Light and zesty with flavors of lemon, melon and peach.

• Chardonnay - A common choice, but best to go with the lighter and fruiter un-oaked versions that work best with all the flavors on the Thanksgiving table.

And, rosé and sparkling wines are also natural pairings with turkey. 

So, white wines are a good choice when pairing with turkey. But, who eats just plain white turkey meat? Generally, the turkey is eaten with a rich gravy, cranberry sauce or some other wonderful topping. And then there are all those tasty side dishes. So, when deciding on a wine, one might focus their attention on the toppings and side dishes.

In many cases, a red wine might be best to pair with all the amazing Thanksgiving flavors. Some red wine options include:

• Beaujolais - Light, dry and fresh with fruity flavors. And you can serve it chilled.

• Pinot Noir - A light bodied red with flavors of cherry, raspberry and strawberry. In the French wine section at your store, this is called a red Burgundy. And this too can be served slightly chilled.

• Carignan - This red wine is a bit higher in tannins and acid, and has flavors of dark and black fruits, pepper, licorice, and spicy, savory aromas.

• Rhône Blends - Rhône wines focus on Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre grapes, producing medium-bodied blends.

• Zinfandel - This medium bodied red wine can really work with a Thanksgiving meal. It has characteristics that include plummy, jammy flavors with spicy or peppery notes.

So, what every you do, try a different wine with your Thanksgiving meal this year! But, most of all, enjoy! Cheers!

It's Time for Beaujolais Nouveau Again!

Beaujolais Nouveau. Its name literally means 'new Beaujolais.' This wine is named for the village of Beaujeu in France, which is a small region just south of Burgundy.

On the third Thursday of each November, France releases Beaujolais Nouveau wine to the world. That means that it will be available on Thursday November 19th this year.

The 'new' part of this wine is due to the fact that the grapes used to make this wine are picked from the vineyards just a couple of months prior to its release! That's compared to most wines that spend a year or more going through the fermentation and aging process before being bottled and shipped to market.  But Beaujolais Nouveau gets from the vineyard to you in about two months!

Word has it that this wine was originally produced for the harvest workers in France to immediately thank them for all their hard work just after harvest was complete. But now its production is somewhere between 30-60 million bottles so that the entire world can enjoy.

Although there are more than 100 Beaujolais Nouveau festivals held each year in the Beaujolais region, the 'Les Sarmentelles' multi-day festival is said to be the biggest and most famous for celebrating the release of Beaujolais Nouveau. The festival includes music, dancing, fireworks and, yes, plenty of wine.

This wine is produced entirely from handpicked Gamay grapes and because it is so new, it is very fresh and fruity. Many describe Beaujolais Nouveau as having flavors of candied cherries, strawberries, red plum, bananas and bubble gum.

Beaujolais Nouveau is meant to be enjoyed young, not critiqued. So, pick up a bottle or two next week and give it a slight chill. Then raise a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau to the French harvest workers. It's Beaujolais Nouveau time! Cheers!

Behind the Cork™ - Veramonte Organic Wines

2019 Organic Sauvignon Blanc ($11.99)

2018 Organic Pinot Noir ($12.99)

These organic wines from Veramonte are produced in the Casablanca Valley of Chile. Both are from organically farmed vineyards and delivers the maximum expression of their living soils.

The Veramonte organic Sauvignon Blanc is 100% Sauvignon Blanc that gets picked at night and goes straight to the press. After sitting on lees for 24 hours, it is fermented in stainless steel tanks to preserve its freshness and flavors.

The Sauvignon Blanc is pale yellow in color with bright citrus, pineapple, pear and herbs on the nose. On the palate it’s got mellow flavors, including grapefruit, moderate acidity and finishes really easy.

The Veramonte organic Pinot Noir is produced from 100% Pinot Noir. After being harvested at night, 15% of the grapes undergo whole-cluster maceration and fermentation that helps build its structure. It is then fermented in small open-top tanks with native yeast. Finally, it’s aged for eight months in French oak.

This Chilean Pinot Noir is pale ruby in color with hints of red fruit on the nose. On the palate it’s got that classic cherry and cranberry flavor of a Pinot with very light tannin and low acidity.

Both of these Veramonte organic wines from Chile are affordable and flavorful, the perfect match to be a Behind the Cork™ wine of the week. Look for these - they’re a great value! Cheers!

Imported by Gonzalez Byass USA

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Disclosure of Wine Sample Submission: I received these samples at no cost for review. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Samples Provided by Rebekah Polster, Donna White Communications

Behind the Cork™ - Ritual Sauvignon Blanc

2018 Ritual Sauvignon Blanc ($19.99)

This is an organic wine from the Casablanca Valley in Chile. This cool climate area is located on the northwestern side of Chile’s coastal range that is less than 30 km from the Pacific Ocean.

This 100% Sauvignon blanc is whole-cluster pressed and is allowed to sit for 36 hours. It is then divided fermented in concrete eggs, neutral oak and stainless steel. By doing the fermentation in three separate ways, the winemaker is able to create different components each with varying aromatics, flavor and textures. The wine is then aged for eight to ten months with the lees being stirred every other week, based on the fruit days of the bio-dynamic calendar.

This wine is pale straw in color and has aromas of citrus, tropical fruit and melon. On the palate it’s creamy-smooth on the front and has nice rounded acidity through its finish.

This one from Ritual is not your typical Sauvignon Blanc. The concrete and oak fermentation definitely adds some wonderful texture and smoothness to this wine. Cheers!

Imported by González Byass USA

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Disclosure of Wine Sample Submission: I received this sample at no cost for review. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Sample Provided by Rebekah Polster, Donna White Communications

Ever Wonder - Are the Wines Really Difference Between Napa and Sonoma Valley?

The wines of Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley are some of the best in California, the United States and the world. They are both in northern California and located right next to each other. So, you might ask “Is there really a difference between these two wine regions?” In a word, yes.

Napa is world famous for its wines and excels in Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Merlot just to name a few. Napa is the smaller of the two valleys, is typically more expensive and gets more traffic and congestion. Napa is located more inland than Sonoma so they don’t get the same cool ocean breezes. Some of the major AVAs in Napa Valley include, Oak Knoll District, Rutherford, St. Helena, Stags Leap District and Yountville.

Sonoma is certainly more expansive being nearly double the size of Napa. So, it’s more spread out, has more small and family-owned wineries and seems to have a more casual feeling. In general, you’ll find more reasonably priced wines in Sonoma. Sonoma grows so many grapes it’s hard to list them all, but they excel in Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Syrah, and Sparkling Wines. What Sonoma has that Napa does not is the ocean. The western part of Sonoma sits right along the Pacific coast which means that they get cooler ocean breezes that help in the growing of certain grapes, such as Pinot Noir. Some of the major AVAs in Sonoma are Alexander Valley, Russian River, Dry Creek, and the Sonoma Coast.

It’s really hard to compare and contrast these two amazing wine districts and their incredible wines in a couple of paragraphs. So my advice it try them both! Cheers!