Barfly

field's version. Sourced from the Chileno Valley Vineyard in the Petaluma Gap, this wine is an apt replacement, and will satisfy most of the oenophiles at your holiday gathering. Unfortunately, it's only available to club members, but maybe a club membership will double as a holiday present? Honeydew and honeysuckle are both apparent in this wine, as is a seashell-like minerality. Goes great with turkey, or so they say.

Go to duttongoldfield. com.

MCEVOY RANCH GLASS HOUSE NON-VINTAGE, SONOMA COUNTY SPARKLING ROSÉ, $36 >>

Sparkling wine is the universal solvent. It goes with everything, and/or nothing at all. It's rare to hear someone say, “I don't like sparkling wine.” Hidden in sparkling wine's bubbles is typically fairly high acidity, and it's that acidity that makes it work with just about everything. Sparkling wine might be the best palettecleansing intermezzo one can have, period. McEvoy Ranch (actually located in Marin but accessed through Sonoma) produces this effervescent strawberry-ish offering that has enough creaminess to recognize it as a “méthode champenoise” wine, while still having enough tropicality to distinguish it clearly from French champagne. Lower alcohol (12.5%) makes it accessible. Goes great with everything, except driving or operating heavy equipment.

Go to mcevoyranch. com.

TOGNETTI FAMILY WINERY BLANC DE BLANC SPARKLING WINE, SONOMA, 2015, $65 >>

This superb sipper will put the zing in any request for chardonnay. It's chardonnay, 100% from Los Carneros, and it's a double gold winner at some other newspaper's 2023 wine competition. The Marin-based Tognetti family has produced wine in Sonoma since 2012 but has grown grapes in Carneros since 1980. Originally, much of their chardonnay went into making Schramsberg's high-end J. Schram sparkling wine, but now it goes into their own. The 2015 vintage

(five years of tirage) combined with a minimal dosage really lets the terroir shine through. As such, it's a delightfully crisp combination of toasty apple and creamy pear. It will go with everything on your plate, or nothing at all, if it comes to that.

Go to tognettiwines. com.

MOYLAN'S CASK STRENGTH BOURBON WHISKEY, MARIN/ SONOMA, $47 >>

Longtime Marin resident Brendan Moylan knows a thing or two about whiskey. This whiskey won gold at the 2022 U.S. Open Whiskey & Spirits Championship (Moylan's also won the Grand National Championship for whiskey). After four years in newly charred American white oak barrels, Moylan's highrye bourbon is finished in French oak barrels, previously used for chardonnay. Bottled at barrel strength, 58.7% alcohol (117.4 proof), I defy you taste the remnants of that chardonnay. What you do taste is rich vanilla and caramel floating over a base of coffee and citrus. Yum! Which Thanksgiving food items does it go with? Who cares?

Go to moylansdistilling. com.

Jeff Burkhart is the author of “Twenty

Years Behind Bars: The Spirited Adventures of a Real Bartender, Vol. I and II,” the host of the Barfly Podcast on iTunes (as seen in the NY Times) and an awardwinning bartender at a local restaurant. Follow him at jeffburkhart. net and contact him at jeffbarflyIJ@outlook.com