You know that feeling you get in undergrad where you have a term paper with about two days before it’s due and you haven’t started it yet but you have to do it? The same feeling that marked the advent of the first day of school after Sumer vacation, or harkens the impending ring of the Monday-morning alarm after a night of overdoing it while watching Sunday Night Football?

I have that feeling.

Because I need to do the annual Thanksgiving holiday wine pairing article.

It’s my belief that the standard holiday wine pairing article is hackneyed and has, for most intents and purposes, jumped the shark. Why? Because no wine critic or educator knows your personal taste preferences nor do they know the ingredients of your Aunt’s famous casserole, which, after all, is only famous within your family and her glee club. So you’re far, far, far better served by going to a wine shop that you trust, telling the folks there what you like (here’s some help on figuring that out) and what food your serving, and getting their recommendations.

Your personal preferences always trump all, but at holiday time we’re rarely buying just for ourselves – and there are indeed some food & wine matchups that do not, in fact, match up. So while I could never give you exact holiday wine recommendations (at least, not without an exact holiday food match to go with it!), I can provide two general pieces of advice that might serve you well in narrowing down your selections…

And so, my turkey-lovin’ friends, here they are:

1) When in doubt, go high acid.

Acidity is your friend when you don’t know what you’re going to eat, or when (as is the case in my family’s Turkey Day gatherings, the variety of food options and their preparations is so great that no one wine has a prayer in hell of matching with everything. As I’ve noted on these virtual pages before, Acidity will almost always do right by your food – it’s the kind of friend that loans food its power tools, buys it two rounds and never asks for a return favor. For whites, options abound, but I’ve had success (as much as can be had at holiday meals, anyway) with my personal fave: Riesling (but then, that might just be because it’s my personal fave!). For less-sweet (and less acidic) white options try Gavi or Soave from Italy.  For reds, I love me some Cru Beaujolais because they are so versatile while still being compelling (please, please, please stay away from the bad Beaujolais Nouveau, okay?).  Bubbles can work, too, because most of them are very high in acid.

2) Roasting? Go big – VERY big.

Slow-cookin’ that turkey for several hours basting in herbs and the deliciousness of its own juices? Then there is pretty much no wine big enough to eclipse the bird. Yes, I know it’s basically white meat, but that doesn’t matter. Slow-roasting turkey or chicken imbues so much flavor and hefty mouthfeel to that white meat that you’d be hard-pressed to find a wine that it can’t stand up to, including heavyweights like Barolo and Amarone. Now, there’s zero guarantee that those enormous red wines will play nice with any of the other foods you’re serving that aren’t slow-roasted meat and potatoes, so your mileage will vary (considerably).

For an added bonus, head on over to The Passionate Foodie and check out Richard Auffrey’s sake and sherry recommendations (you’re family will never see that one coming!).  As always, your holiday wine pairing reco’s are encouraged, so comment as you deem fit!

Cheers – and have a safe & happy Turkey Day, peoples!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at The Dreaded Thanksgiving Holiday Wine Pairing Article, Part CCXXII from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

End of discussion.

Seriously.

Look, no wine really goes all that well with processed candy anyway.

So why not do what a lot of people in my ‘hood do: grab a bottle or two of decent white vino, several beers, and convert one of your kids’ pull carts into a mobile drinks cooler and turn the whole thing into a mobile party (this is assuming you aren’t driving that mobile party to/from anywhere, and are able to walk the entire distance – so it’s a tactic best used for chauffeuring toddlers through their local neighborhood Halloween adventures).  Kids get their Halloween thrills, you get your block-party quota in, and everybody wins!

Also, and you’re probably not going to do this but just in case, don’t buy a crappy wine or a wine you probably won’t like just because it has a Werewolf on the label or something.

You’ve got a week to go in planning your Halloween party, people, don’t screw it up with bad juice dressed up in a seasonal costume by a bunch of marketing folks – because that would be a really scary way to toast the Hallow’s Eve festivities!

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at The Perfect Wine To Pair With Halloween Is… from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

BUT… I like to help people when it comes to wine, and I kept getting twitter DMs and Facebook messages asking me the equivalent of “any good wine recommendations for a picnic this weekend?” in a  run-up to the Memorial Day weekend.  And so now that it’s officially too late to do anything about Memorial Day because lots of wine shops might be closed anyway for the holiday, I’ll be a stinker and share what I’ve been Facebook-ing and DM-tweet-ing with a number of people already.

For those sick of hearing about these types of recommendations: sorry, you’ve been outvoted by Inbox (for those sick of Seals & Croft: sorry, I’ve no real advice to help out with that, except maybe drinking a glass of wine and smoking one of those… funny cigarettes….).  But before you send me angry emails (most especially in relation to my slightly-irreverent take on the dulcet, laidback tones of Seals & Croft), please note that Memorial Day wine recommendations aren’t any different from any other Summer holiday recommendations – we’re basically talking hot-weather, picnic-&-BBQ wines here, and so what I’m gonna tell you will hold true for any Summertime holiday party wine action that you’ll be facing as the mercury is rising…

As is typically the case when I do this sort of thing, there are no specific wines in the list – you’re smart and brave and groovy and dare-I-say-it downright attractive enough to experiment based on some general guidelines, people.  This list, of course, is to be used only when you find yourself in a pinch, or find yourself deciding that you’d like to try (or would like to force someone else at a party to try) something new, or find your local wine shop out of stock when it comes to what you personally prefer to drink in the Summertime.  All of thesehave examples that are of good quality and can be found under $15 without too much difficulty (but I’m not saying you shouldn’t whip out the $100 Cab in the 90F heat of a Summer picnic if that’s your thing… okay, well, I am saying that actually):

Whites

• Gavi – Italy’s go-to picnic wine for when you’re finally sick of Est! Est! Est! and realize that it’s actually not all that great in most cases. Not as “there” as Riesling, but more “there” than Muscadet, Gavi’s lemon-&-lime liveliness is refreshing, food-friendly, and gulpable while seeming more sophisticated than the alternative of guzzling hard lemonade.  Anyway, it’s what I reach for when the thermometer starts to creep above 85F.
• Torrontes – Argentina’s next big thing, or probably actually it’s current big thing.  Explosively fruity, and yeah it’s a  little grapey sometimes but it’s also got good body (like some Chardonnay in the same price range) without being flabby (unlike a lot Chardonnay in the same price range).

Rosé

• Tavel – Of course one could list dozens of viable options here, but I feel like France’s southern Rhône rosé star has been outshone by flashier rosés made from just about every red grape under the sun, like Malbec.  And while plenty of Sangiovese rosé do rock the Kasbah, I have the feeling Tavel is do for a rebound, because it’s probably still the source of the best Grenache-based rosés for the money.

Reds

• Beaujolais-Villages – They don’t suck like many Beaujolais nouveau wines, but they aren’t as awesome as the Beaujolais Crus, either.  But there are some sweet spots to be had in the middle, and in Beaujolais-Villages you get the fun, fruity, able-to-take-a-stint-in-the-ice-cooler drinkability of Gamay with a hint of slightly more serious and certainly more food-friendliness of the Crus.  Added bonus: they also don’t often come in bottles painted entirely in purple.
• Zinfandel – This is the all-American (in more ways than one) BBQ wine: fruit that is almost sweetly jammy to go with meat that is cooked in BBQ sauces that are almost sweetly jammy.  While it doesn’t take too well to being out in the sun very long, it has the added benefit of being a bit higher in alcohol and so if you’re finding yourself nearing your personal threshold of your abilities to cope with family and/or coworkers during a BBQ this Summer, this wine will dull the pain faster than any of the others on the list.

Cheers – and have a safe one!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Summer (Breeze) Wines, Because You Made Me Do It from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

You’re probably thinking “Why dredge up this topic when we’re between holidays?”  Great question, sir (or madam… or whatever…).  I mean, I’m sure as hell not going into a St. Patrick’s Day wine pairing here (that’s my birthday anyway, so for me the pairing will be “the best and most exclusive vino I can get my grubby little hands on, and if at all possible in large quantities and preferably on someone else’s tab.”).

You see, it is precisely because we’re between holidays – removed from the craziness, glass in hand (hopefully), and welcoming (in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway) the onset of Spring – that I want to breach this topic.  We are chill right now.  We are rational.  We don’t have the specter of holiday stress and deadlines looming over our heads like a f*cking Sword of Damocles.  We put on the relaxation tape, take a sip, and chill out. Feel ze tension leeeeving yer boudee…

That was nice.  Ok – I’m an anal-retentive East Coaster so the 30 seconds of relaxation I’ve allowed everyone is officially over.  Now that we’re chill… let’s get all riled up again, shall we?

Seems to me that one of the trendiest things for wine geeks to do over the last couple of years is to declare the death of many a stalwart wine practice, and the wine + holiday pairing is one of the items in the wine geek sniper cross-hairs.

Where do you stand on holiday wine pairing recommendations?  Shout it out in the comments – and on March 22 I will randomly select a commenter to win a Wine Soiree aerator (about a $25 value)! To learn more about the Wine Soiree, check out my review from 2008.  Please note that Wine Soiree has no affiliation with this post idea, I just happen to have an extra one and feel like having another giveaway!

But before you get commentin’, let’s look at both sides of the story…

On the one hand, if there ever was a zombie of a wine topic, it’s holiday pairings. The recent arguments against them look something like this: Randomly select any ten holiday wine pairing articles, and they’ll often seem as though they’re following a template more predictable than a California vintage report on a wine’s back-label (don’t even get us started on regional vintage reports, which probably deserve the same, if not more, focus of wine geek ire). Personal preference trumps any “pairing” idea any day of the week, so why bother?

On the other hand, holidays are stressful, and people want help with a complex subject (wine) so that they have one less thing to have to worry about during those hectic times. It was wine writer and generally-awesome-perpetually-clad-in-black-fellow Eric Asimov who once told me that many, many people want holiday wine pairing recommendations (emphasis is mine): “if the articles are boring or routine, then it’s our fault as wine writers; it’s our job to make wine and holiday pairings interesting for readers.”  Tough to argue with Eric (though that hasn’t stopped me in the past, because I’m pig-headed).

My personal view is that while I find most holiday wine pairings to be rote, that’s no different than any other writing on annual topics. I’m a big fan of giving people what they want and as long as they want holiday wine pairing ideas and tips, the challenge is in trying to present the topic in fresh, entertaining and interesting ways.  I leave it to everyone out there in wine blog-o-land to decide how successful I am at that.  I figure the worst that can happen with those pairing articles is that a few peeps get turned on to a wine region, brand or style that they haven’t tried before, and that’s never, ever a bad thing in the wine world.

Where do YOU stand on wine & holiday pairings?  Shout it out for a chance to win!

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Has Holiday Wine Pairing Jumped The Shark? (Have Your Say For A Chance To Win A Wine Soiree!) from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

NV Bollinger Brut Rosé Champagne ($100)

I’m going to ignore Bollinger’s PR push to promote their affiliation to the royal family in the UK (who have awarded Bollinger with the Royal Warrant since 1884, and which is now reached a fever-pitch of hype with the recent royal engagement), because I now find the whole thing too annoying, in stark contrast to this very sexy but possibly-overpriced sparkler. It’s predominantly Pinot Noir, with the Chardonnay and Pinot Munier playing more supporting roles, and the results are quite Pinot-ish as you’d expect, with the initial impressions being tart cherry fruit and a sizeable mouthfeel despite a relatively modest 12% abv. This might explain why it got low-90s scores from most of the established wine mags, who might have been too quick to pronounce judgment – it takes a good 45 minutes in the glass for the Bollinger Brut Rose to open up, but when it does you will get some incredible baked red apple coming at you, and a great match for appetizers of almost any stripe.

More after the jump…

2006 Napa Angel “Aurelio’s Selection” Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley, $90)

I am finding it very difficult to believe this is a first vintage for Napa Angel, despite the Montes pedigree behind it. In a word, it’s stunning.  The fruit is from Oak Knoll and Yountville, and it’s heavy on the blackberries and black cherries, yet somehow gets just enough acidity to balance out, counter the 14.8% abv and deftly avoid fruit-bomb territory. The main draw, though, is the almost perfect integration of French oak – if there’s a Napa Cab with more heavenly cedar overtones than this, I’ve yet to taste it. About 4K cases made. Expect to have your ass kicked.

2005 Klein Constantia Vin de Constance (Constantia, $50 500ml)

The 2005 of this sweet, luscious South African nectar set an almost impossible bar for Klein Constantia, but the 2005 stands up to its older sibling quite admirably.  Muscat de Frontignan (a.k.a. muscat blanc á petits grains) is the variety, and while this vintage is a bit more honeysuckle, lime & tea leaf and less tangerine and orange rind than the 2004, I’m not complaining. Not one bit.  Rounding out the sexiness are a gorgeous golden hue, a fascinating history behind the resurrection of the style at Constantia (let’s not forget that the likes of kings, emperors and Charles Dickens once praised this stuff), a suggestively-shaped bottle, and tons of acidity to make dessert pairing a decidedly less risky endeavor.

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011. Originally at Heavenly Cab, Kingly Nectar And Royal Bubbly from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!