Freshly carved turkey, buttery mashed potatoes, herb-filled stuffing, rich cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie- is your mouth watering yet? With Thanksgiving just a week away, it is safe to say the holiday season is in full force. We have the perfect guide to Thanksgiving pairings.
Thanksgiving dinner is often a hodgepodge of different dishes, flavors, and wine pairing possibilities. With so many diverse flavors and textures, finding the perfect wine pairing can be intimidating. Just like friends, family, and food on the holidays- we’ve always believed the more wine, the merrier! We’ve come up with a variety of our favorite wines to ease your holiday wine buying decisions that work best with Thanksgiving’s favorite dishes.
Pass The Bubbly
While we stand by the belief that any day is the perfect day to pop open your favorite bubbly, there isn’t a better way to commence a celebration! A sparkling wine is the perfect way to kick off festivities and pairs exceptionally well with hors d’oeuvres. The best part? A sparkling wine can carry on well into the feast because of its bold nature, acting as a great palate cleanser for the richer flavors. Check out a few of our favorite bubbly bottles.
Brundlmayer Brut NV
WA91
The result opens clear, fresh and pure but also intense and complex on the nose, with lemon confit and some stony-mineral aromas. On the palate, this is still a terribly fresh and young sparkling wine that reveals a well structured and persistent finish with a stimulating grip. It is bone dry (I love that purity!) and doesn`t have the richness and complexity of the Extra Brut; but with 11.5% alcohol, its very delicate mousse and lingering salinity, the Brut Reserve is a classic aperitif and vinous morale booster. Just excellent!
Schramsberg J. Schram Rose 2008
WE96
This is a beautiful, complex and complete wine, from the delicate, spiced raspberry aroma through the creamy, nuanced finish. Subtle but well-defined fruit flavors like white cherry and raspberry pulse across the palate, buoyed by an ultrafine effervescence and lively acidity. But the texture is smooth around the edges, lending a sense of extra depth and layering to this extraordinary bottle. Just coming into its own now, it will improve through at least 2020.
Dom Perignon P2 1998
WS96
This vibrant Champagne is tightly knit up front, with a dense core of smoky minerality and ripe dried apricot and white cherry flavors. Expands on the satiny palate, revealing accents of pastry cream, toast, singed orange peel and toasted coconut that echo on the persistent finish. Drink now through 2028.
Thanksgiving Day & All The Rosé
By this point in the year, most of us have stashed away our favorite Rosés for next summer, we’re here to give you one more reason to keep the pink. Known for its versatile palate, it’s safe to say that there may not be a better complement to the Thanksgiving smorgasbord of flavor! A Rosé is going to pair effortlessly with all of your green dishes and roasted vegetables while remaining acidic enough to withstand the richer flavors on your plate. A perfect hint of fruit takes this wine to top-tier status for our Thanksgiving selections. With a price point perfect enough to pour for the masses, we can’t get enough! Here are a few Rosés we have chilling in our cellar, patiently awaiting turkey day.
Le Artishasic Rose of GSM Shake Ridge Vineyard 2016
“Aromas of strawberry blossom, yellow melon, and rose petal. Minerality expressed as crushed rock blended with hints of shaved cantaloupe fill out the mid-palate. Finishes with soft bing cherry, white peaches, and wild strawberry. The 2015 vintage did not undergo “cold stabilization”, and will reveal natural pink tartrates (crystals) upon chilling.”
Hudson Vineyards Grenache Rose 2016
“Our Grenache Rosé is a true direct to press, barrel aged wine for immediate quaffing or for aging. The “Old Spring Vineyard” 20 year old heritage vines produces a sublime rosé with fresh peach and strawberry aromas. It is a mouth filling, thirst quenching experience like biting into a Granny Smith apple.”
The Perfect Pinot
Whether you choose a Pinot Noir from Burgundy or the new world, this wine is sure to pair with nearly everything on your plate! With low tannins and mouth-watering acidity, Pinot Noir is very versatile and complementary to your favorite savory dishes. If you prefer to choose a Burgundy styled Pinot, be prepared to discover a balanced palate of dark fruit, leather, and tobacco. This red wine is the perfect selection to complement dark and white turkey meats, cranberry sauces, creamy potatoes, and herb-filled stuffing! There are quite a few to choose from, so we narrowed it down a few of our favorite crowd-pleasers.
Bergstrom Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard 2013
WA89
The 2013 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard is one of the earlier picked vineyards for Bergstrom and they told me that they look for the “pretty side” of Shea, seeking for natural acidity. Matured in 20% new oak, it has a minty bouquet with wild berry fruit, hints of blood orange coming through with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with fine saturated tannin, a little steely in the mouth, balanced with good acidity. Like the Pre du Col Pinot Noir, I noticed a slight abruptness coming through on the finish, nevertheless it should give plenty of drinking pleasure over the next 4-6 years.
Domaine Raphet Clos Vougeot (Cuvee Unique/Vieilles Vignes) 2015
BH90-93
Like the Gevrey villages the aromatic profile is relatively high-toned with its red cherry, pomegranate and raspberry-scented nose that is sprinkled with hints of earth and humus. There is both good energy and detail to the medium weight flavors that possess a quite supple mid-palate though the youthfully austere finish tightens up enough to suggest that this should reward mid-term…
DRC La Tache 2015
WA98
The 2015 La Tâche Grand Cru is a young classic, soaring from the glass with an exotic and stunningly complex bouquet of dark berries, plums, hoisin, smoked duck, dark chocolate, licorice and Chinese five spice, with just a touch of rose hip on the upper register. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, multidimensional and authoritative, with more mid-palate depth than the Richebourg, its attack more textural and layered. The tannins here are fine grained but firm—swathed in an ample core of plummy, almost savory fruit—and the finish is long and scintillating. Cropped at 25 hectoliters per hectare and harvested September 7 and 8.
Perfectly Imperfect
It’s true. There probably isn’t any single wine known in existence to pair perfectly with all of the flavors of Thanksgiving dinner. However, there certainly are a few that stand superior to the rest. Break the ice with your favorite bubbly treat, experience the effortless diversity of a refreshing glass of Rosé, or indulge in the rich flavors of the evening with a balanced Pinot Noir. An even better option? Try all three and decide the crowd favorite! We wish you the happiest of Thanksgivings, filled with great wine and quality time!
Established in 2002, Benchmark Wine Group is the leading source of fine and rare wine retailers, restaurants and collectors around the world. Based in Napa Valley, we acquire the most sought-after wines from private individuals and professional contacts, but only when provenance can be verified by our team of acquisition professionals. Our staff draws on decades of industry experience and is dedicated to providing exceptional service to all of our clients. Benchmarkwine.com offers 24-hour access to our cellar, displaying inventory in real-time.
