(NYT) Dining: Good Wines Won’t Fix Thanksgiving, but They Co

[AKR]

Dining: Good Wines Won’t Fix Thanksgiving, but They Couldn’t Hurt
2020-11-05 16:22:24.890 GMT

By Eric Asimov

(New York Times) -- 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 your worries.

That’s as it should be. Selecting wines may 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 long way 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?

Beginning in 2004 and ever since, the Thanksgiving wine panel has annually
offered thoughts and recommendations in hopes of smoothing the selection
process. We will not allow a global pandemic to hold us back.

Nonetheless, we accept that this year is different in almost every possible
way. Most obviously, almost 250,000 seats will be empty at Thanksgiving
tables. These absent loved ones must be acknowledged even as we try to carry
on.

Thanksgiving comes as Covid-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 Zoom or
the phone, people will find a way to share their blessings, maybe through a
prayer or a toast. Wine can help forge these links, possibly by opening the
same bottles from afar.

Our wine panel was not immune to the 2020 winnowing. Typically, we assemble
monthly in a room at the New York 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 not want to let Thanksgiving pass, so we got together outdoors,
in the rooftop space of the NoMad 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 so many parents
dealing with home-schooling, faced a last-minute child-care issue and could
not attend.

That left Florence Fabricant, Julia Moskin and me, so we 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. None would retail for more than $25. We adopted these
guidelines years ago, believing that for big gatherings, nobody wants to spend
a lot of money on wine.

For one thing, you are going to need a lot of bottles. Our rule of thumb is
one bottle per drinking person. Now, that’s a lot of wine. You don’t have to
drink it all, though. It’s far better to have too much than it is to run out.

In an ordinary Thanksgiving, with a fair amount of cheerful chaos and plenty
of different dishes, pairing wine and food is the last thing you want on your
mind. Our tried-and-true solution is to choose versatile wines that will be
fine with almost any foods.

The grapes that go into the wine don’t matter nearly so much as the nature of
the wine itself. That is, you want wines with lively acidity and relatively
low alcohol, the sorts of bottles that are refreshing and energizing over the
course of a long feast.

Smaller gatherings offer different opportunities. You don’t need as much 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 you want to emphasize American wines, I have
found wonderful choices from the West Coast: Blue Ox, Cruse, Schramsberg, Iron
Horse, Soter and Under the Wire are a few names worth knowing about.

Follow that 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, or maybe a carricante. Maybe you’re
beginning with a creamy soup? Any of these wines will work, as long as they
are not too oaky.

I would follow up with a red — a pinot noir or syrah, or maybe a Barolo 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 you would 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, you will have seen the
recommendations for many different specific bottles — Beaujolais, Loire reds,
Italian reds, Oregon pinot noirs, rosés, sparklers and even ciders.

These all continue to be great choices. But we have come to realize that the
specifics don’t matter nearly so much as the character and energy of the
wines. Acidity, balance and relatively low alcohol are the watchwords.

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 2019 Clémentia from
Domaine les Aphillanthes, made from biodynamically farmed viognier, roussanne
and clairette.

This was a counterintuitive wine, as viognier in particular can be
overbearing, but this was well-focused and lively, a “sunny wine,” Julia said,
that offered its tropical fruit flavors without being too heavy.

Her red was our favorite, a 2018 Verduno Basadone from Castello di Verduno,
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. It was 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.

White wines are usually made by crushing the grapes and removing the juice
from the skins, which carry tannins and pigments. If you allow the juice to
instead macerate with the skins, as you would a red, it picks up an amber
tinge and some tannins, depending on how long the maceration lasts.

This wine, from Gia Coppola, a granddaughter of the film director and wine
producer Francis Ford Coppola, is made with riesling grapes grown in Lake
County in California. It’s a sort of introduction to orange wines, mild and
not particularly tannic but light and balanced, with pretty flavors of dried
fruits.

Many orange wines can seem idiosyncratic, and I often wonder whether people
will want to drink them over the course of a long meal. This would be a good
candidate to try.

Her red was a nonvintage pinot noir, the High Wire from Hound’s Tree on the
North Fork of Long Island — fresh, lively and refreshing.

I loved Thomas’s white, a 2018 Mosel riesling from Julian Haart that was
textured and rich with floral and stony mineral flavors. I called it a wake-up
wine for the way it snapped me to attention, though Julia suggested it was
maybe too bold.

Thomas’s red came from Franck Balthazar, one of my favorite Cornas producers,
who also has a small négociant operation. This 2018 Côtes du Rhône is 60
percent syrah and 40 percent grenache, farmed organically. It was spicy,
earthy and complex, a lovely wine.

I stuck with American wines for my 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 red was the 2017 Queen of the Sierra from Forlorn Hope, a blend of
trousseau noir, mondeuse, zinfandel and a few other grapes, all organically
grown in Calaveras County in the Sierra Foothills.

I loved the freshness and complexity of the fruit, spice and herbal flavors in
this wine. Like each of the eight bottles, it went beautifully with our meal
of NoMad’s roast chicken.

These eight bottles all epitomized the sorts of wines to seek out. I can’t
emphasize enough, though, that they are only examples. Dozens if not hundreds
of other wines will fit these criteria. They won’t make this Thanksgiving seem
any more normal, but they couldn’t hurt.

Refreshing and Ready for Thanksgiving

White Wines

★★★ Lioco Sonoma County Chardonnay 2018 $22

Tangy, textured, energetic and balanced, with earthy, stony, floral and citrus
flavors.

★★★ Julian Haart Mosel Riesling “1,000L” 2018 One Liter $24

Lively, bold and rich, with floral and mineral flavors. (Vom Boden, Brooklyn,
N.Y.)

★★★ Gia Coppola Lake County Orange Riesling 2019 One Liter $25

Pretty orange wine, with an amber color, flavors of dried fruits and flowers,
and a light touch of tannins.

★★★ Domaine les Aphillanthes Côtes du Rhône Clémentia Blanc 2019 $20

A “sunny wine,” as Julia Moskin put it, with flavors of tropical fruits,
flowers and a kiss of honey. (Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, Penn.)

Red Wines

★★★ Castello di Verduno Verduno Basadone 2018 $24

Fresh and lively, with bright, spicy, incisive flavors of purple fruits, earth
and a touch of citrus. (Polaner Selections, Mount Kisco, N.Y.)

★★★ Franck Balthazar Selections Côtes du Rhône 2018 $22

Lively, spicy and fresh, with earthy, peppery flavors. (Savio Soares
Selections, New York)

★★★ Forlorn Hope Queen of the Sierra Rorick Heritage Vineyard Calaveras County
2017 $22

Bright, fresh and energetic, with complex flavors of red fruits and herbs.

★★★ Hound’s Tree High Wire North Fork of Long Island Pinot Noir NV $23

Light-bodied, with lively flavors of red fruits and a touch of refreshing
bitterness.

Pairings: Spiced Shrimp

Rich, sweet flavors dominate the traditional Thanksgiving table, with
cranberries offering a welcome acidic glow. Adding some spice to whet the
appetite is a good idea, either for a nibble with a glass of wine or a
cocktail, or as a first course.

For many years I have prepared a simply made dish of shrimp, coated with
spices and quickly broiled. Some lemon contributes knife-edge sharpness.
Certainly the bright acid-driven whites and the smoothly welcoming reds that
were selected for our tasting would all be excellent partners.

The basic recipe is elastic, easily halved or scaled up. And the spice choices
can vary. Here I have opted for ras el hanout, a complex North African blend
that delivers modest peppery heat along with pungent elements of cumin,
fenugreek and coriander, as well as the warm astringency of allspice and
cloves. Harissa, a North African pepper sauce, seasons the dip.

When the occasion is not Thanksgiving, the shrimp can even be a main dish to
serve three or four, paired with a grain like rice or farro, or with the
recipe that follows, a buttery tumble of fluffy couscous. And one of our
Thanksgiving wine choices. FLORENCE FABRICANT