Thanksgiving Part 3

You're going traditional; you're serving turkey on Thanksgiving. And, you're serving it with the somewhat traditional accompaniments including cranberry sauce. But, you don't like white wine or your guests don't like white wine or you're afraid it's going to be a cold day and you only like white wine on warm days, or it's 2020 and white wines are jinxed in 2020.

In any event, that leaves you with red wine because you must have wine. That is a law. Yogi Berra would have said, "You could look it up." I think it's in the Bill of Rights somewhere. In fact, I'm certain of it. It's right between the 4th and 5th Amendments.

So, you've committed to turkey and you've committed to red wine. Let's figure out together how to pair this.

We know, because everybody does it, that cranberry goes with turkey. After all, it's a tradition; you could look it up. 

In the scope of fruit, I think of cranberry as bright and acidic. If we think back to what we've learned over the past nearly 8 months (wow, 8 months of blogging on wines every day without missing a day yet), you pair acid with acid. Or, said much better, a wine with low acidity gets overwhelmed by food with high acidity. And, we are looking for bright colors. Generally speaking, red wines produce brighter colors when they are grown in cooler, foggier weather. 

One of the grapes that fits the bill is Gamay. You'll find Gamay in wines labeled Beaujolais and that included Morgon and Brouilly (please don't serve me a Brouilly as they taste like poorly flavored water to me).

The other, and we need to further break it down is Pinot Noir. But, as we have seen, Pinot Noir really varies by the region it comes from. I'm going to focus on Willammette Valley, Oregon as most of the readers here are American. Willammette Valley has lots of microclimates. Among the coolest are Ribbon Ridge in the northwest corner and Chehalem Mountains at the highest elevation. To add to the problem, not all growing seasons are the same. In fact, recently, most have been brutally hot. 

So, and this should be easy if you've been cellaring some of these for a while (don't look at me as I haven't), but otherwise diffcult, find yourself a 2009 Pinot Noir from either the Ribbon Ridge AVA or the Chehalem Mountains AVA.

See how easy that is' you're good to go. 

Tomorrow, we'll find white wine to go with your dinner.


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