There’s nothing that matches the feeling of the Thanksgiving holiday. Family togetherness and plenty of good food puts everyone in good spirits. For foodies and wine enthusiasts especially, the Central Coast has plenty for which to give thanks—fresh farm-to-table foods and world-class wines are widely available.
To aid in preparing the perfect meal, the Sun asked several area food and wine professionals to weigh in on what wines pair best with typical foods found at the Thanksgiving meal. Here’s what they said:
A little something on the side
There is a purpose to drinking wine with dinner, and especially Thanksgiving dinner. The first is to foster a happy atmosphere and keep people at the table longer. The second purpose is to enhance the food, and one wine serves as an all-purpose food enhancer: pinot noir.
Wes Hagen is a brand ambassador and winemaking consultant for J. Wilkes Wines in Santa Maria. He said from appetizers to Thanksgiving side dishes to the pumpkin pie at the end, pinot noir is the best bet.
“We do live in a city that is famous—and deservedly so—for pinot noir, and I think that conversation starts and can pretty much stop with pinot noir,” Hagen said.
Hagen is referring to the light bodied red wine grown in cool climates like the Santa Maria Valley. This wine has light tannins but also an acidity that is usually reserved for white wine, he said. This is important because when paired with food, wine moistens the mouth and cleanses the palate. In essence, every sip of wine refreshes the palate between bites enabling you to better enjoy every morsel of food. With the rich, heavy food typically presented at Thanksgiving, the right wine is needed to do that job.
“Gravy covers your taste buds. Nothing will take fat off the taste buds like alcohol, acid, or tannins,” he said.
Pinot noir pairs especially nicely with foods like green beans with fried onions or bacon, Hagen said. And because of the cranberry notes in pinot noir, it matches the tartness in cranberry sauce.
Andrew Etteddgue, manager at Root 246 in Solvang, said put away those bold, aged cabs. Like Hagen, he said instead accompany your rich side dishes and appetizers with a pinot noir. “If you bring out a wine that’s really dry, you’re going to find that all the spices and buttery-ness and everything that’s in your meal is really going to kill the wine. So you won’t taste the wine,” he said.
For Etteddgue, it’s all about the pinot noir and zinfandel. And for whites, nothing beats a stainless steel chardonnay or citrusy pinot grigio for Thanksgiving food.
“If you know some good Oregon pinots, that’s really good because Oregon pinot noirs have a tendency to be a little more earthy. They kind of have that mushroom earthiness to it, so you can imagine when you’re eating, what goes good with turkey stuffing with like mushroom and stuff like that? So … the wine’s going to have that in it,” he said.
He said that most of the foods at Thanksgiving are very similar—salty, heavy dishes—so that’s why a lot of the same wines pair nicely through the whole meal.
Etteddgue said that mashed potatoes and stuffing heavy on butter and herbs need high acidity that’s going to cut through the flavors and not overpower. For people who like white wine, not all whites can hold up to buttery sides, but a stainless steel chardonnay works perfectly in place of a pinot noir. “It has the bones of a chardonnay, so it’s a nice and healthy wine without the oak. It has that nice acidity to it and that citrus, and that will cut through the potatoes and the butter on those potatoes,” Etteddgue said.
In addition to the stainless steel chardonnay’s bright citrus flavor, he suggested a pinot grigio as an alternate white that can work with Thanksgiving food. Root 246 will start its Thanksgiving meal with crab cake, which Etteddgue said will pair nicely with a pinot noir or pinot grigio because it has the citrus that works well with the crab. And though pinot noir is the favored Thanksgiving wine, he said wines like a Paso Robles or Napa Valley zinfandel, grenache, or shiraz would work as well.
Etteddgue advised diners to stay on the low side of the alcohol with the wine because if alcohol goes up, so do the tannins.
The main event
When meal-making becomes a family affair—as is often the case on Thanksgiving Day—and every contributor is packed tight into one kitchen, each laying claim to a specific dish and corner to make it in, nerves can sometimes run a little ragged.
A perfect antidote that keeps everyone happy and harmonious is wine, explained Robin Bogue, winemaker and owner of William James Cellars in Santa Maria. Bogue told the Sun that her family opens up some chardonnay early in the day, while the cooking is still going on.
“It comes from that famous Julia Child quote, ‘Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink,’” Bogue said. “With my family, we start the day with chardonnay because it’s kind of a light, medium-bodied wine and it has full flavor.”
Chardonnay also plays well into the meal, through many traditional starter dishes, but once the main course arrives, the common varietal may not do quite the trick, she said.
Bogue is used to pairing wine and food. She provides recipes and wine pairings to William James Cellars’ wine club members, offering combinations of food and dishes that can elevate her wines and vice versa. With the rich selection of foods everyone has come to expect on the table for Thanksgiving, she leans more toward the acidic side of the red zone, especially when the main course hits the table.
“When we get to the turkey, we break out the pinot and the grenache,” she said. “Grenache is bold enough, spicy enough, and flavorful enough so that it has the consistency that will stand up to mashed potatoes, which are creamy, and the gravy, which is also creamy but also oily.
“But then you’ve got the turkey,” she continued, “which can be moist or dry. It’s the texture of the turkey that really needs a little bit of acid to really be able to cut through what you have there.”
Though she has more than a decade of experience pairing wine and food, Bogue is more than aware that—depending on the dish and wines available—her ideal pairing might not work for everybody. It’s up to diners to respect their palates, she said, and find what works for them.
Red wines like grenache and pinot noir work especially well, she said, but some dishes will call for the same varietals but different flavor profiles. Fruity pinots should probably be avoided, she said, but peppery ones can be just the right addition to a carefully tended bird. In the case of smaller, oilier birds like duck or Cornish game hens, Bogue said, richer varietals like cabernet franc, gewurztraminer, or viognier may work to meet some of the oil and fat in the poultry.
For winemakers like Stephan Bedford, owner of Bedford Winery in Los Alamos, the character of the dish is a huge influence when pulling bottles from his cellar, but so are the people in attendance for the celebratory meal.
“The overriding factor is the people you share it with,” Bedford said. “It’s nice on holidays like that to pull out those ancient bottles you have been saving awhile, set them upright the day before, and then dive into them.”
A local winemaker for decades, and a lifelong, self-proclaimed foodie, Bedford said that his Thanksgiving guests have come to expect the older, more aged wines at his table. Often, his guests also bring along special purchases to accompany the meal as well.
The more the merrier, he explained, as the beloved drink does more than just accompany a meal but expands an annual get-together into another realm of experience.
“When you’re tasting things, and it’s something somebody has some reverence for and pride about, and they’ve selected it and aged it, and now they’re sharing it, it tricks people into concentrating a little bit more,” Bedford said. “Just the fact of paying attention—no matter what you’re doing—and wine and food is a part of that too, all of a sudden your enjoyment increases.”
Dessertopia
When it comes to dessert wines, port sounds like an obvious choice, or maybe a roscato or moscato.
And while the sweet profiles of each of those wines match the decadence of a dessert course, some winemakers in Santa Barbara County have an entirely different opinion.
Norm Yost has been in the California wine business for more than 30 years. Originally from Northern California, Yost got his start in Napa Valley back in the mid-1980s. After a brief stint in the Russian River Valley and then Oregon, Yost made his way to Santa Barbara County to help build Foley Estates in the Santa Rita Hills and Lincourt Vineyards in Solvang.
In 2000, he had an opportunity to buy grapes, which he eventually turned into 240 cases of wine. That was the beginning of Flying Goat Cellars.
Other than its pinot noir and pinot gris, Flying Goat is known for its sparkling wine. When it comes to Thanksgiving dessert, pumpkin pie is a mainstay, but Yost recommends his rosé with fruit-oriented tarts, or crisps and cobblers—particularly with apples and pears.
The rosé is not as sweet as it seems, Yost said, but the strawberry/raspberry profile is often associated with sweetness.
Making a sparkling wine is a two-part process: making the base wine and then secondary fermentation in a bottle—which is where the bubbles come from. The decision to increase its sweetness happens at the bottling phase, according to Yost, when sugar and yeast are added.
Yost says his 2011 Goat Bubbles blancs de blanc matches up nicely with heavy or sharp cheeses. If that’s the case, then replace cheese with cheesecake and go from there.
If all you’ve got is pumpkin or pecan pie, Yost goes for the Goat Bubbles anyway.
That bit of advice may fly in the face of culinary convention, but seriously, have you ever watch Chopped?
“Life’s short, give it a try,” Yost said.
Eric Railsback of Lieu Dit winery in Lompoc and Presqu’ile Winery in Santa Maria offered some sweeter suggestions for dessert pairing.
At 30 years old, Railsback already has several years of winemaking and restaurant work under his belt. In college, he studied business economy and French, and even went to France to participate in a couple of grape harvests.
Railsback’s culinary experience includes working under famed chef Mario Batali. He worked in restaurants in Los Angeles and San Francisco before settling in the Central Coast, where he established Lompoc’s Lieu Dit Winery in 2010.
He chose Santa Barbara County for its transverse valleys—running east to west—that create various microclimates throughout the region. These climates, coupled with their own unique soil profiles, are responsible for producing a diverse range of grapes.
Railsback said Presqu’ile does a late harvest sauvignon blanc.
He said of all wines, he considers sauvignon blanc the quintessential dessert wine.
“It’s a classic dessert wine. Like cheese, for desserts, honeys, and nuts go really great,” he said.
For fall desserts, Railsback also recommends Madeira. The nutty sweetness matches earthier-type pumpkin pies, he said. Railsback reaches for the vintage Madeira from the Rare Wine Company—one of his favorites. It’s a very accessible wine—meaning not too expensive—that Railsback said goes well with chocolate dishes.
Whatever you decide to pair on your table, make sure it’s love and laughter. J. Wilkes’ Hagen said wine keeps people at the table longer. And that’s important because, as he said, “Thanksgiving is a time for family to gather and spend time together, and sharing wine makes things a little more festive.”
The Sun staff lifts a glass to Thanksgiving, family, and the bounty of the Central Coast. Contact them through the editor at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 19-26, 2015.
