Wine for the Holidays:
Let’s Talk Turkey

by Scott Clemens

Holiday meals are notoriously difficult to pair with wine because the foods served are often assertive, rich and spicy, and contain sweet elements as well. If you’re serving roast beef, virtually any red wine will fit the bill. If you’re serving turkey or ham the main course poses no problem, as both go easily with almost any wine, from white to blush to red. However, it’s what’s served around the main course that gives us headaches. The wine, afterall, has to go with the whole meal. So what goes well with stuffing, corn bread, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, carrots, green beans, Brussels sprouts and the ubiquitous cranberry relish?

Rather than attempting to pair flavor components, look for ways to make food and wine non-reactive. For instance, the sweetness of commercial cranberry relish will exaggerate the tannin (an astringent, bitter quality) in red wines, while protein lowers the perception of tannin (tannin binds to the protein, effectively stripping it off your tongue). So lean roast beef or cheese will tend to soften the impression of harsh tannins found in many young Cabernet Sauvignons, Zinfandels and Syrahs. Without something to ameliorate the tannin, young red wines can make your tongue feel like sandpaper.

Likewise, the high acidity of lemon will tend to mellow the impression of tannin, as well as lower the perception of acidity and bitterness. Sauvignon Blancs and other dry, high acid varieties may seem sharp to some tasters, but if you eat something with high acidity and follow it with a sip of wine, the wine will seem less acid. Acidity in food (say vinegar in a salad dressing or lemon squeezed over fish or vegetables) depresses the impression of acid in the wine while elevating the perception of fruit.

The trick is either to find a wine that is non-reactive, or to manipulate the reaction to its best advantage. Try adding orange and lemon zest as well as the juice to cranberry relish, balancing the sweetness of the relish with citric acid, so it’s not so wine-unfriendly. Similarly, add lime zest and lime juice to candied yams to neutralize the sweetness.

Green vegetables pose a problem in that you can’t really predict what will happen (artichokes, for instance, are notoriously difficult, having acidity, coupled with sweet and bitter compounds). Depending on an individual’s threshold for each compound, a wine sipped after eating green vegetables could be perceived as sweet, bitter, or neutral. Try adding lemon juice or balsamic vinegar to green beans and like vegetables to make them more wine-friendly.

The best rule of thumb is to stay away from tannic wines altogether at the holiday meal. The least reactive wines are assertively fruity and aromatic. Don’t try to impose your tastes on everyone at the table; allow for some diversity. Since tastes vary so widely, I always try to have at least two wines on the table at family get-togethers. White Zinfandel, one of the fruitier Sauvignon Blancs, an off-dry Gewürztraminer, an Italian Brachetto, a light Pinot Noir, or a French Beaujolais all work well with the range of flavors and levels of sweetness present at the holiday table.

I like to start with a relatively fruity Blanc de Noirs sparkling wine, which can aptly serve as an aperitif and later transfer successfully to the table.

Here, then, are several wines to make your holiday dining complete:

2005 Stone Paddock Sauvignon Blanc
Hawkes Bay New Zealand $16
Score: 100.0
This wine is a joy to sip as an aperitif, but it also works well with food. Delicate, perfectly proportioned, with silky texture and lively acidity, it offers exquisite layers of gooseberry, passion fruit, nectarine and minerals in perfect balance.

2005 Menage a Trois White Table Wine
California $10
Score: 87.0
This wine could have been made with Thanksgiving in mind. A blend of Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Muscat, it's full of tropical fruit flavors, honeysuckle and lime. Refreshing, unpretentious, quaffable, but still possessing classical structure. And it’s inexpensive.

2005 Bargetto Gewurztraminer
Monterey County $14
Score: 89.0
Gewurz is always good with Thanksgiving dinner and Bargetto’s is one of the best. This vintage shows intense flavors of lichee, white peach and ginger in an off-dry style.

2004 Williams Selyem Pinot Noir
Russian River Valley $42
Score: 90.0
A little more than you may want to pay for Thanksgiving (your aunt Mary may not appreciate its nuances, but you can always keep it at your end of the table. It's ripe enough to show forward black cherry aromas, yet not so ripe that it loses its delicacy and subtle dead leaf undertones (if you’re lucky, that may turn off aunt Mary). The tannin is negligible and the texture is a little silky. The finish, with its mineral-soil umami flavors leaves you wishing for another glass.

2004 Mosby Dolcetto
Vigna Della Casa Vecchia $18
Score: 88.0Dolcetto, meaning "little sweet one," is a Northern Italian variety that is quite rare in California. Though this version has more fruit character (blackberry-blueberry), it also has a complex earthy note that I've not found in the original, and it will work well with the Turkey, stuffing, and green vegetables.