Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m so glad you’re here!
In my last post, I mentioned that I hosted my Friendsgiving on Sunday–turkey with all the trimmings. For this meal, I asked willing guests to taste and report on several wines I chose to test as pairings for the food. The quality of the wine was not the point here, but rather how well each wine complimented the food.
My menu was pretty traditional:
Turkey, cornmeal dressing, spinach casserole, hasselback potatoes, cranberry sauce, three bean salad, and pecan pie.
When you walk into a supermarket or liquor store, we all know that there is a dizzying array of wines to choose from, and lots of folks who want to tell you what wine to pair with what food. While it is true that some wines simply don’t go with some foods (a cab will overpower a delicate fish dish, and a sauvignon blanc will get lost in a rich steak, for example) the rules are not hard and fast; and Thanksgiving dinner is the time to throw out a lot of those preconceptions because the meal includes a pot pourri of flavors and textures that will suit a broad assortment of wines.
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are classic choices for the big meal. Turkey and dressing have rich flavors that can be complimented by both reds and whites. I tend to prefer a good red with the big meal because I feel like a white, while a fine choice, can get lost in the bold flavors of all the dishes. Enter Pinot Noir, which tends to be a lighter red and a little acidic, which is good for cutting through all the fatty, rich meats and sides. A wine with some spiciness is also a good match, which is why a nice, off-dry Reisling is another classic pairing.
Since I already knew that Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and a dry Reisling are all fine choices, I opened up several bottles of bolder red wine to see how they paired with Thanksgiving meal standards.
With my menu, I pulled the following wines from our collection:
2013 Clos Pegase Merlot:
2022 Ridge Frediani Ranch Red Blend, featuring Petite Sirah and Valdiguie:
2022 Ridge Sandy Lane Carignane:
2017 Paso Robles Zinfandel:
All of these wines were very good examples of their genres, but remember that wines vary depending on the maker, the vintage and the terroir. And some other housekeeping: if you’ve got a wine that’s older, like the 2013 or the 2017 featured here, you should consider decanting them an hour or two before serving–the flavors will open up and change after being exposed to air. I didn’t decant the Merlot and should have because by the end of the meal, it had opened up beautifully.
Let me start by saying that all of these wines worked just fine with the meal, but there were a couple that stood out.
Here are our findings:
On first taste, the Merlot was delicious: soft, supple, rich flavors of dark berries and cherries and some soft spice. We all enjoyed this wine and it went well with the food, but didn’t hold up to the bigger flavors, especially the fattier dishes like the dressing and casserole. However, by the end of the meal, after the wine had had some time to open up, the flavors of the spices bloomed. This helped it hold up to some of the bolder flavors, but overall needed a little more acidity and brightness to be the winning pairing.
The next wine, the Ridge Frediani Ranch was by far the most interesting wine I pulled. It was a blend of the Valdiguie grape and Petit Sirah, plus some Charbono for good measure. It was a big, juicy mouthful of ripe summer berries from the Valdiguie, dark stone fruit from the Petit Sirah and the Charbono, and a nice hit of spiciness that hit all the right notes. This wine fared very well with all of my tasters, with some rating it as their favorite.
The 2022 Sandy Lane Carignane was an interesting choice. It was also an excellent wine overall, but no one picked it as their top choice for the meal. In general, Carignans have fruit-forward flavors and they also tend to be highly acidic and tannic, which may be why this wine didn’t fare as well as some of the other wines in the tasting. While this wine didn’t win the overall vote, it may just need more time in the bottle to let those flavors and tannic acids mellow out a little, because some acidity should be a nice pairing with Thanksgiving foods. I have another bottle. I’ll try it again in a couple of years and see how it’s aging.
The final wine, the Paso Robles Zinfandel, was a lovely pairing with the meal. It was ripe and jammy, with lots of stone and summer fruit flavors, balanced with a generous spiciness that complimented all aspects of the food. It slightly edged out the Frediani Ranch blend, but I think I would call it a tie. Both of these wines stood out as excellent choices for the big meal.
As a final note–I went back for another taste of the Merlot at the end of the meal, when it had opened up and the spices had bloomed, and decided to pair it with a slice of the pecan pie. I gave it a BIG thumbs up!
So that’s it. My overall message here is to not be afraid to experiment with wines for the big meal. The flavors of the foods are varied enough that there are lots of wines out there that are going to work. Be creative, be daring, be bold and most of all, be happy!
Tune in tomorrow when I will give some thoughts on the holiday and gratitude.
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
