Holiday pairings are for the birds
Every year about this time, the so-called “experts” offer their insights on holiday pairings. Typically, we see a different pairing with every single course. And when you start thinking about volume, even with just a half glass of wine with every course (appetizer, salad/soup, entrée and dessert), that leaves you with just about three full glasses of wine (3/4 of a bottle in most cases) per person. That's a lot! Pairing cocktails with courses is even more problematic because distilled spirits are both anesthetic in nature, as well as analgesic. Meaning that they not only kill germs, but they also dull your senses. And last time I checked, taste was a sense. Pairings are also particularly problematic because not everybody likes the same things.
But one of the great things about a Thanksgiving meal is that it's almost universal in its construct. Unlike a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa meal, which can break several different ways depending upon depth of commitment and/or persuasion, not to mention personal taste, Thanksgiving is almost always turkey (or something that looks and tastes like turkey). Then there are the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (or yams), stuffing and gravy. So as such, it would seem relatively easy to pair an alcoholic beverage with it all. Right? Well, wrong, actually.
When it comes to alcohol, not only do people have different tastes, but those particular Thanksgiving items are not well suited to the most popular of them. And what goes well with turkey doesn't necessarily go well with sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce. There are two schools of thought with pairings. Pick something that enhances the food or realize that the food and the beverage are separate entities, and if each is good and well balanced in their own right then they don't necessarily need to complement each other. And, if you don't like something, you are probably not going to like it paired with something else. The most important thing is to drink what you like, not what someone else tells you to like.
So, my goal here was to find beverages that go pretty well with everything on the Thanksgiving table in one fell swoop. I hope I have covered all the bases from your budding oenophile nephew to your set-in-theirways elders. Good luck, I say in advance. Here are a few local things to try out, starting at ones for your nephew and working your way up, or down, depending.
Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!
And please remember that drinking and driving never pairs well together, no matter what.
DUTTON-GOLDFIELD 2020 CHILENO VALLEY VINEYARD (PETALUMA GAP) RIESLING, $50 >>
With the closing of Pey-Marin Vineyards in 2021, Marin County lost one of its most unique and iconic wines. Their Shell Mound Riesling had been the benchmark for dry California riesling for many years. Into the gap (literally) comes Dutton-Gold