Which wine’s a winner for Thanksgiving?

Local wines would be another good theme. If you took advantage of our fine fall weather to go leaf-peeping in the Virginia and Maryland countryside, you may have returned home with a few bottles of vino. Thanksgiving dinner would be a good time to open them. You might even impress your out-of-town relatives with your stories about local wine country.

Whichever theme you choose (country, region, global), some pointers:

■ Bubbles go with everything. Champagne, cava, prosecco, franciacorta and all sorts of sparkling wines and ciders are exceptionally food-friendly. More important, they cleanse your palate (that “scrubbing bubbles” commercial comes to mind), leaving you refreshed for the next bite. So begin the celebration with bubbly, and don’t forget to take the bottle to the table when you sit down.

■ Look for a fruity white wine. Riesling’s acidity acts like sparkling wine’s bubbles, and you can choose from bone-dry to slightly sweet Rieslings depending on your mood or audience. For a local theme, viognier or a white blend based on petit manseng can play off any citrus notes on the menu (as well as the cranberries). If you’re looking for more heft in a white, a good barrel-fermented chardonnay can match the strongest flavors on the menu, as long as the fruit and acidity aren’t overwhelmed by oak flavors.

■ Certain red wines are extremely versatile with food. These are generally lighter reds, such as pinot noir, barbera or gamay (the grape of Beaujolais). Moving up the spectrum toward heavier wines, syrah and nebbiolo are good choices. The heaviest reds, such as cabernet sauvignon and merlot, are often quite oaky; they may match the turkey but might not cozy up next to all the fixings.

■ The dessert wine should be sweeter than the dessert. A rich Vin Santo-style wine, a Pedro Ximenez sherry, or a fortified dessert wine such as tawny Port or Madeira would be ideal with pumpkin pie.


Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/