Wine Focus November and December: Wines for a Holiday Feast

[Robin Garr]

Thanksgiving is coming up in the United States, quickly followed by Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, New Year's Eve and other regional holidays around the world. What wines would we choose for a winter feast, and how do we pick them? Do you choose wine to match the banquet fare? Or forget matching and simply treat wine as another element in the holiday smorgasbord of flavors? Do we go with a high-end treasure because it's celebratory? Or do we break out the more affordable stuff that's food-friendly and doesn't require reverent silence and deep thought in the middle of a festive gathering? Or some/all/none of the above?

Tell us how you decide on your holiday wines, and pull a few corks to check it out, as we start looking forward to the holidays in this month's Wine Focus.

.....or try to find a wine if having celebration with a non wine geek crowd!! I went to a Xmas meal where no-one there was remotely into wine .

Pretty good focus there boss!

As we've recommended before, Red Zinfandel. Yes is doesn't go with turkey, but throw in all the side dishes with herbs and spices and it goes with the whole meal splendidly.

I'll be making lamb Bourguignon for Thanksgiving dinner, and I'll serve either a Chave Hermitage or a De Vogue Musigny Villes Vignes with it. Decisions, decisions....

-Paul W.

.....or try to find a wine if having celebration with a non wine geek crowd!! I went to a Xmas meal where no-one there was remotely into wine .

Pretty good focus there boss!

Beer is my solution there, Bob, with whisky as a chaser.

No festive days here in November, if one excludes today, Toussaint, when most people place flowers on the graves of their forebears and 11th November when the WW1 Armistice is remembered. Neither are great occasions for cracking open good bottles. However judging by the supermarkets, people are already gearing up for Xmas and a local caviste told me that he stocks up fully for the festive season by the end of the first week in December in order to forestall the risk of breakage and theft of his orders. I've already done some anticipating by buying a few Bollinger SC in a Foire aux Vins at €33/bottle; that's a good price here.

[David M. Bueker]

I'll be making lamb Bourguignon for Thanksgiving dinner, and I'll serve either a Chave Hermitage or a De Vogue Musigny Villes Vignes with it. Decisions, decisions....

-Paul W.

Well there's the high end treasure.

We tend to go with Zin and PN with Turkey and honey baked/glazed ham at Thanksgving, Reisling and Prosecco as well..One of our neighbors hosts a Polish XMAS dinner while we have them over for Hannukah..Xmas dinner tends to be big on beer,, Pot Roast and latkes for Hannukah accompanied by Cab, perhaps a Carlisle red, reisling and chards.

[Robin Garr]

Don't forget, folks - other than "trophy" wines that we might be saving for a big feast, we're also encouraging everyone to taste and post notes about wines that might be good for a festive meal. I'll try to come up with some TNs pretty soon, or the next time we have dinner at home, anyway!

I usually take a white wine (Gewurztraminer or Riesling), a Pinot Noir or village Burgundy and a Beaujolais Cru to a communal Thanksgiving dinner at my church following a noon service on Thanksgiving Day. Sometimes I take a Zinfandel also. The Pinot Noir and Gamay grapes seem to go well with roast turkey or ham and cranberry sauce. A Zinfandel would probably stand up better to the fryer turkey. The Gewurztraminer and Riesling may go well with candied sweet potatoes and some of the other side dishes. This year I will probably take a spinach or broccoli casserole and possibly a dessert of pumpkin cake/cream cheese roll along with wines. I haven't decided on the wines yet but may take a Cote de Brouilly Beaujolais Cru as one of them if it arrives in the shipments I am receiving this week. I may also take some Alvear Pedro Ximinez fortified sweet wine to go with pecan or pumpkin pie.

2013 Alvear Montilla-Moriles Pedro Ximinez de Anada, Andalucia, Spain. This fortified dessert wine was opened for a church fundraiser. Pretty amber color with clarity. The nose suggested prunes, toffee, and dried apricot. On the palate, the aromas replicate in the flavors with an added hint of maple sugar. The viscosity is revealed in the "tears" on the side of the glass. I preferred the 2011 version although I didn't compare them side-by-side. This could serve as a holiday dessert wine poured over vanilla ice cream or with pecan pie or perhaps crème brulee, almond tart, or pumpkin pie.

Cooking up some seafood? Here is a Muscadet.for the feast.

2010 Grand Fief de la Cormeraie Sur Lie.

First bottle of three. 12% alc, good natural cork, $25 Cdn, Veronique Gunther-Chereau.

Medium straw colour. Lemon lime nose, apple and briny. Opened up nicely over an hour.
Initial entry thought is dry as usual, nice finish, not too complex. Very good acidity, minerality, lemon fruit. Do not think needs much cellaring?
Think better than the 2010 Cuvee des Cepes Centenaires I posted on....August 11th.

One that would be perfect for Christmas is 2012 Golan Heights Winery Moscato Golan (Galilee). Yes, a muscat from Galilee! It's sweet but not heavy, and just barely sparkly. Refreshing, which is really what you need with all that rich food. $16.

[David M. Bueker]

I have been digging out delicious "orphan wines." These are the bottles that are always so hard to open, because I will likely never have one again. Last night with my folks we had the 2001 Wedouree Shiraz-Mataro and it did not disappoint. There was the telltale eucalyptus aroma, along with delicious blackberry fruit and ample structure. Still very young but very good, especially with some local beef burgers!

I took five bottles of wine to our communal Thanksgiving Dinner following a noon church service (Episcopal church) but we only opened two bottles. We had about 30 people but only a few were wine drinkers and some were children. I opened a 2011 Weingut Keller Riesling Trocken (dry), Rheinhessen, Germany as a white wine. For a red wine I opened a 2009 Pavillon de Chavannes Cote de Brouilly Cuvee des Ambassades Beaujolais Cru, Beaujolais, France. Both were well received by the wine drinkers in the crowd. The Cote de Brouilly had nice raspberry notes that went well with both turkey and ham. We had both roast turkey and fryer turkey, smoked ham, candied yams, green been casserole, a spinach casserole that I took, collards, a couple dishes featuring corn, an unusual but tasty lasagna, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, a vegetable and olive tray, crackers with Brie, cranberry jelly, rolls and a dessert table with pumpkin and apple pie, coconut cake, and chocolate lava cake made in a microwave. (The lava cake was really yummy with whipped cream on top.) I brought two sparkling wines that didn't get opened--a Spanish Cava and a Bugey Cerdon, slightly sweet sparkling rose'. We also didn't open the Scherrer Old and Mature Vines Zinfandel which was too young to be opening anyway so I was glad that it didn't get opened.

[David M. Bueker]

As per usual we had Pinot Noir and Champagne for our Thanksgivng dinner. Notes are posted separately. Of the three wines we had the 2013 Kutch Bohan Vineyard Pinot Noir was my favorite. Of course I really liked the Eagle Rare 10 Year Old Bourbon with cookies for dessert.

[Robin Garr]

This Focus works so well for both TNs and discussions of wines for the season that we've decided to extend it through the holidays. Post on, and let's keep talking about what wines we choose for these special winter times and why we choose them.

We're also contemplating some small changes in the way we Focus on wines, with an eye to keeping things fresh after several years of these monthly community discussions about specific wines, grapes and regions. Stay tuned!

As I was the only red wine drinker, we skipped the reds this year and went with an Urban Riesling and 2 sparklers from Mionetto, a sparkling Moscato and their Brut Prosecco

After a very big meal, a good Moscato will go down nicely. I just tasted a 2014 Marco e Vittorio from Adriano. Delicious Moscato d`Asti .

I recommend Gruet Blanc de Noirs or Gruet Rose as a festive bubbly that won't break the bank.

-Paul W.

We enjoyed the 2001 Nairac Barsac while decorating the Christmas tree with baked brie and roasted chestnuts. Not the most intense or viscous Sauternes I have had, but lovely at this age. Lots of apricot, nuttiness, and smelled just like we opened the lid to our beehive to take a peek. It reminded us how much we adore Sauternes, and we simply must drink more of it.

Joy, I assume you enjoyed the Barsac with Brie and chestnuts and didn't decorate the tree with Brie although that would be innovative!

Ha! That would be quite a sight, especially since our cats would tear the tree down while trying to get to the cheese!

I think it is always nice to start with bubbles whatever the occasion. That's what suits my palate these days anyway. Champagne and methode traditionelles with some lovely renditions of the latter coming out of New Zealand.

My wife's family and I had a Champagne (NV Fabienne Prie Brut Res.) and a 2000 Pegau Res. with glazed ham and other casseroles for Christmas dinner. Everyone but me loved the champagne (too tart for me) but the Pegau was a huge hit. Mostly sweet and a bit of sour cherries with a rustic note and very smooth tannins, it reminded me of a very nice Burgundy and went very well with the meal. Color starting to show some brick at the edges. Glad I have more but in no hurry.