Thomas Cottrell is Bellevue Club’s contributing wine columnist and the owner of La Cantina Wine Merchants.
It’s time again for the annual Thanksgiving Day wine article. Not only is the Thanksgiving meal one that’s difficult to pair with wine successfully, but after a few years any wine writer will have run through just about every imaginable choice. It can leave said wine writer a little desperate. Not this year! I’m going to break the mold and recommend some completely new and different wines. They’ll be fun wines for you to try, and make great combinations with the big meal. Let’s start with a Gruner-Veltliner. Yes, it’s hard to pronounce
(GROON-er VELT-leener) and you’re not sure where it actually came from (Austria), but it’s a delicious wine. Bright and mouth-watering, full of wild fruit flavors, it’s a perfect white to start the meal. You can use it strictly as an aperitif, or carry it on through a first course of your favorite shellfish or seafood. You’ll find it has a wonderful affinity for food—maybe that’s why it’s the current darling of sommeliers everywhere. My suggestion: the 2007 Nigl Gruner-Veltliner Kremser Freiheit (Austria $20), a fine example at a great price. If you’d like a different wine with the first course—or a good white choice for the turkey—let me recommend one of my favorite Sauvignon Blancs.
New Zealand may be the world’s current favorite place for growing this grape, but the South Africans are using many of the same techniques and turning out equally impressive wines. The 2006 Mulderbosch Sauvignon Blanc (Stellenbosch, South Africa $22) is bold and intense, full of gooseberries and lemon-lime, and enticing from the first sip through the lingering finish.
Another winner from South Africa is the 2006 Goat Roti (South Africa $18), a Syrah-based wine that will remind you strongly of a Rhone wine, but with a twist all its own. Dark and intense with
a spicy, earthy note that will go particularly well with dark turkey meat, it’s a wine that shows an abundance of ripe, almost sweet, fruit flavors. About the name: made by Fairview under the Goats Do Roam Wine Company label (a take on Cotes-du-Rhone), Goat Roti is a nod towards Cote Rotie, one of France’s most famous wines. I love wine jokes, and I love delicious wines like this one even more. Speaking of Syrah, a grape that goes particularly well with the turkey day feast, you should consider one fine local example, the 2005 Brian Carter “Byzance” (Columbia Valley $30). A blend of Syrah and Grenache—a grape that harmonizes beautifully with syrah—it is dark and rich, ripe and almost sweet with
concentrated fruit flavors, and spicy and slightly earthy. Full-bodied and smooth, it avoids the harsh tannins that usually react badly with turkey—especially the white meat. Look for this wine at your favorite wine shop or drop by the Woodinville winery. I’ve saved what may be my personal favorite for last: 2005 Zenato Ripassa Valpolicella (Veneto, Italy $29). It’s a seductive wine that’s fairly complicated to make, but a joy to taste. Zenato takes some of their best Valpolicella—a wine that is usually lighter in style—and “passes it over” the lees of their Amarone. Amarone is the king of Veneto wines, produced from grapes that have been concentrated by air-drying them before the fermentation. After the Amarone is separated from the lees—grape skins, seeds and stems—the Valpolicella wine is poured over them. This starts a slight second fermentation and gives the lighter Valpolicella some of the characteristics of the Amarone. After aging for up to two years in a barrel, the resulting Ripassa is dark and fragrant, plummy and lush, full of blackberry and currant flavors, with hints of chocolate in the background. The texture is velvety, and the finish is long, luxurious and sexy. You and your guests will love this one. I hope this gives you enough new ideas to make this Thanksgiving’s wine pairings fresh and exciting. Enjoy!
