Good wine can be balm for this Thanksgiving
In this strange and disquieting year, Thanksgiving planning begins with the question of whether to have any sort of gathering at all. Which wines to drink with the meal will be the least of yourworries.
That’s as it should be. Selecting winesmay cause a mild quiver of anxiety, but it’s never really a problem.
Even in the best of times, when you’re embracing aunts, third cousins and your best friend’s sister’s daughter, the joy of the feast and the renewal of ties go a longway toward mitigating the quality of whatever happens to be in your glass.
Still, good wine can be a significant asset. It can compel guests to take notice, to pause and ponder rather than gulp and disregard. If bottles are to be opened, why not select them with the same diligence you apply to choosing the perfect recipe for mashed potatoes?
Thanksgiving comes asCOVID-19 cases are spiking nationwide. Every family will decide how to approach this often joyously rambunctious holiday. Many gatherings will be diminished as people, protecting their loved ones and themselves, decide not to travel or entertain. Thanksgivings for four, or two or even one will not be unusual.
Somehow, families will manage to bridge the distance. Whether through Zoomor the phone, people will find away to share their blessings, maybe through a prayer or a toast. Wine can help forge these links, possibly by opening the same bottles fromafar.
Our wine panelwas not immune to the 2020 winnowing. Typically, we assemble monthly in aroomatTheNewYork Times building, where we consider and discuss a
range of bottles. In deference to the pandemic, we have not gathered since February.
Still, we did notwant to let Thanksgiving pass, so we got together outdoors, in the rooftop space of theNoMad restaurant in Manhattan. Even so, we were not entirely whole. Bernard Kirsch, our tasting coordinator, always joins us, but this year he opted out. Our colleague Pete Wells, like somany parents dealing withhome-schooling, faced a last-minute child-care issue and could not attend.
That left Florence Fabricant, JuliaMoskin and me, sowe invited Thomas Pastuszak, NoMad’s wine director, to contribute a couple of bottles. We would be tasting eight wines in all.
We stuck with our usual ground rules: Each of us would bring two wines, one white and one red. Nonewould retail for more than $25. We adopted
these guidelines years ago, believing that for big gatherings, nobodywants to spend a lot of money on wine.
Smaller gatherings offer different opportunities. You don’t need asmuch wine, so if you like you can open your finest bottles.
Dinner for four, for example could begin with hors d’oeuvres and sparkling wine.
It could be Champagne. But if youwant to emphasize American wines, I have foundwonderful choices fromtheWest Coast: Blue Ox, Cruse, Schramsberg, IronHorse, Soter and Under theWire are a few namesworth knowing about.
Followthat with a good white wine, whatever strikes your fancy. Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, riesling, all will be great, but don’t stop there. You might like an assyrtiko, ormaybe a carricante. Maybe you’re beginning with a creamy
soup? Any of these wines willwork, as long as they are not too oaky.
Iwould followup with a red— a pinot noir or syrah, or maybe aBarolo or a Beaujolais. Whether serving turkey, or downsizing to a duck or chicken, these are all flexible with wine, so match the bottle to your sense of the occasion rather than with the food.
Maybe youwould prefer two whites, or no whites at all. Why not? This is the year to eliminate rigid constraints.
Even so, the wine panel stayed with its philosophy of seeking out lithe, agile wines. If you have followed us over the years, youwill have seen the recommendations formany different specific bottles— Beaujolais, Loire reds, Italian reds, Oregon pinot noirs, rosés, sparklers and even ciders.
These all continue to be great choices. Butwe have come to realize that the specifics don’t matter nearly somuchas the character and energy of the wines. Acidity, balance and relatively lowalcohol are thewatchwords.
We have gotten good at finding bottles that fit these criteria, and this year was no exception. In fact, all eight bottles earned three stars, the equivalent of excellent choices. What separates them are scant degrees of preference. They were all that good.
For her white, Julia brought a Côtes du Rhône blanc, a 2019Clémentia fromDomaine lesAphillanthes, made frombiodynamically farmed viognier, roussanne and clairette.
Thiswas a counterintuitive wine, as viognier in particular can be overbearing, but thiswas well-focused and lively, a “sunny wine,” Julia said, that offered its tropical fruit flavors without being too heavy.
Her redwas our favorite, a 2018VerdunoBasadone fromCastello diVerduno, made of pelaverga piccolo grapes organically farmed in the Langhe region of Italy.
While the area is best known for its Barolo and Barbaresco, Langhe also grows pelaverga piccolo, one of a group of lesser-known grapes that offer excellent values. Itwas fresh, bright, spicy and intriguing.
Florence, too, went against the grain with her white, selecting a so-called orange wine, a white with some of the characteristics of a red.
Many orange wines can seem idiosyncratic, and I oftenwonder whether people willwant to drink them over the course of a long meal. Thiswould be a good candidate to try.
Her redwas a nonvintage pinot noir, the HighWire fromHound’sTree on the North Fork of Long Island — fresh, lively and refreshing.
I loved Thomas’ white, a 2018Mosel riesling from JulianHaart thatwas textured and rich with floral and stony mineral flavors. I called it awake-up wine for theway it snapped meto attention, though Julia suggested itwas maybe too bold.
Thomas’ red came from FranckBalthazar, one of my favorite Cornas producers, whoalso has a small négociant operation. This 2018 Côtes du Rhône is 60% syrah and40% grenache, farmed organically. Itwas spicy, earthy and complex, a lovely wine.
I stuck with American wines formy picks. My white, a 2018 Sonoma County chardonnay from Lioco, was tangy, textured and balanced, the sort of white wine that will go with almost anything.
My redwas the 2017 Queen of the Sierra from ForlornHope, a blend of trousseau noir, mondeuse, zinfandel and a few other grapes, all organically grown inCalaveras County in the Sierra Foothills.