Which wine w/ turkey ?

I'm not going to be cooking anything for thanksgiving this year so I'll be bringing a couple bottles of wine to my parents' house. I've checked around and various sites recommend whites like Chardonnay, Sauv Blanc, Zinfandel, Reisling/Gewurtz or Pinor Noir for reds.

Of course, I have none of these on hand at the moment. So, any input as to whether any of what I do have would fit would be appreciated as most of my wine-pairing knowledge is limited to matching regional Italian food/wines (as you'll see below) .... Here's what I've got:

Damilano 2001 Barolo (2)
Avignonesi 2002 Vino Nobile di Montalpuciano (3)
Ceretto 1999 Barbaresco
Cesari 2001 Amarone della Valpoicella
Domaine Chante Cigale 2004 Chateauneuf du Pape
Veuve Cliquot yellow label (2)
Perrier Jouet Grand Brut

It's most likely that I'll stroll down North Ave to try the Cellar Rat store but if I can avoid it, any advice would appreciated. All of the above are in the $30-40 range so that's prolly my budget if I were to get something else.

From your list, I'd probably pick the Chateauneuf du Pape first, the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano second. Of course you can't go wrong starting off with the Veuve Cliquot.

I'm bringing a 2005 Gewurztraminer from Frey-Sohler and a 2004 pinot noir by Gary Farrell (Russian River Valley) to celebrate the Thanksgiving cage match with my family today.

Bon Appetit had a pretty good Thanksgiving article about holiday turkey and zinfandels. It's called "Zins of Our Fathers"

3 of Bon Appetit's recommended ($19 - $30) picks:
Peachy Canyon Winery 2005 Westside, Paso Robles ($19)
Beautiful primary red color, showing a hint of age. Red-fruit bouquet. A bit hot, but smooth, sweet, well structured, and alluring.

Green & Red Vineyard 2004 Tip Top Vineyard, Napa Valley ($28)
Slightly reminiscent of a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Full-throttle, complex, intense, smooth, and worthy of contemplation.

Storybook Mountain Vineyards 2005 Mayacamas Range, Napa Valley ($30)
A different kind of Zin. Sweet but leathery, complex and tannic.


3 of Bon Appetit's recommended ($50 - $75) picks:
Hartford 2005 Fanucchi- Wood Road Vineyard, Russian River Valley ($50)
From a famous Zinfandel vineyard. Great color. A bit conventional and one-dimensional. Lovely bouquet and easy to drink.

Robert Biale Vineyards 2005 Aldo's Vineyard, Napa Valley ($50)
Deep, dark, brooding, and beautiful. Soft in mouth and ideal for Thanksgiving.

Vineyard 29 2004 Aida Vineyard, St. Helena ($75)
Wonderful room-filling bouquet. American oak and great fruit. Harmonious, luxuriant, soft, juicy, mouthcoating, decadent.

Click here for the full article:
http://www.epicurious.com/bonappetit/features/zins_of_our_fathers

~GS

a suggestion to Cellar Rat wine shop:

If you're going to say on both your website and phone message that you have new holiday hours and are open 7 days a week, it would be nice if it were also mentioned that you're not open on Thanksgiving. I understand that not a lot of places are open today (but Sam's is until 4) but at least mention the exceptions on your website or phone message.

I have tried the Zin thing with Thanksgiving dinner, and it did not suit me so well. For some reason this year I ended up with 2002 Central Calif wines, a Byron Chardonnay which was good - I have been aging Byron Chards for 2-3 years after release for a few years and I find they age very well.

Then we had a couple of Foxne single vineyard PNs - Julia's Vineyard which was at its peak, and Bien Nacido which could have aged another 3 years or so, and is not one of my favorites usually anyway - comes out too muscular, extracted, not balanced like the Julia's.

I may just stick with subsequent vintages of Julia's Vineyard PN in the future.

What did the rest of you have?

There were multiple bottles of wine open at our Thanksgiving celebration. I brought two Eric Ross Old Vine Zinfandels (2004 and 2005.) I thought they went well with the food. Better than the organic, somewhat effervescent red that someone else brought!

I found a dolcetto d'Alba (Poderi Colla - '04) to be the best match this year, though towards the end of my second glass I thought it was running out of steam. Or maybe that was me.

For my money it's all about the treatment, as the turkey itself is so neutral.
I don't know Zins real well and haven't had any that changed my life.
I would tend to go Pinot Noir with turkey, or, as I did this year, Piedmontese, but moderate scale (not Barolo, probably not Barbaresco). We had Gattinara, and I was very happy with that. I would have been equally open to Carema, a good Spanna, or possibly one of the Valtellina reds (Sassella, et. al.).
Somehow, Tuscan wines (i.e. Sangiovese-based) don't say "turkey" to me. But I haven't tried it. Again, it might all depend on what you're doing with it.
Another possibility might be good Valpolicella.
But if you're going all sage, and sweet potatoes, then whites---maybe dry Riesling (Alsace). White cotes du rhone, even.

I had an assortment of CA rieslings on hand for my folks but Mrs. Davooda and I don't care for the sweet stuff. Instead, we indulged in Pinot Noir from Sineann in Newberg, OR. They source fruit from all over the NW and now into CA and I enjoy their wines big time.

The 2006 Red Table Wine was really well-balanced. Definitely fruit forward but it had enough acidity to cut through the richness of the stuffing, turkey, gravy and yams and sported a lingering finish. We had a pre-prandial glass and then another with the meal. At $16 I thought it a bargain.

The 2006 PN blend, now called Abondante, was a step up from the table wine and is $24/bottle. A tad more elegant, but I didn't think is tasted 50% better than the red table wine. The finish was much longer, however. Perhaps my palate was overdone at this point...just means I will have to give another bottle a try!

My Dad really likes an after-dinner sipper so we opened a 2004 Dolce from Far Niente (Napa). A late harvest and very concentrated white wine (not eiswein, but close), each sip offers a huge mouthful of flavor. Dad enjoys this wine with the mince pie I make just for him each year. Says it and port are the only wines that can stand up to mince pie.

Last year I served a 2003 Bogle Vineyards "The Phantom" - it's a blend of petite sirah, old vine zin and mourvedre. It was also very good.

Davooda

The two main dishes will be: Turkey, stuffed with vegetables for flavor while cooking (with the vegetables removed before serving and disposed of since the temps will not be high enough to cook them through, but I digress). Stuffing will feature bread, bosc pears, chestnuts, veggies, breakfast sausage, and a lot of butter.

Suggestions for wine?

Sounds pretty much like the meal The Wife is working on right now. Today at Binny's, I picked up some Riesling Kabinett, an off-dry white that should prove complementary and crowd-pleasing (and, more importantly, wife-pleasing).

Me, personally, I'm going with Macallan 12 yr (also at Binny's, on sale at around $39), an all-purpose beverage.

I'm going to bring some coal to Newcastle.... (my BIL is in the wine business)
but I have not had a 2003 JJ 
Christoffel, Urziger Wurzgarten Auslese*** in
a year or so.

I think he's going to open a few '71's & '76 Germans as well as the usual CA PN's & CnP's
Yum!

I had this wonderful Rolly Gassmann Auxerrois (I know, Rolly Gassmann, unfortunate name...). The wine tasted of baked, spiced apples with a pleasing sweetness and still some structure. It went perfectly with the turkey and fixings, not a drop left.

Rolly Gassmann is a little-known maker from Alsace and I will be looking out for these wines from here on out.

Time to bump this topic!

I was reading Bill Daley's recommendations in the Trib (via @garyvee aka Gary Vaynerchuk) and he recommends the Hugel Gewurztraminer. I really like Hugel's wines - but a Gewurztraminer seems so ho-hum.

I was thinking about an '07 Chateau Saint-Roch "Chimères" Côtes du Rousillon. It's only $14 bucks or so at Wine Discount and I really loved a recent bottle I had. It's a blend of grenache, carignan and mourvedre. I could see it going well with a turkey, especially given that it has specific Rhone characteristics.

What is everyone else serving?

We did early t-giving 2 weekends ago and I had the J. Hofstätter Gewürztraminer and it was a great match. That particular gewurz had a lot going on...very complex, a lot of mouth-feel, and an amzing nose! So it stood up well to all the T-giving fixin's. I ordered it online so not sure about availability here. But if you are going to go the gewurz route, pick a bold one. In Fine Spirits sells a Ransom Gewürztraminer that's pretty delicious and could be a good match.

I recommend a Sangiovese. And Zinfandel isn't white (except White Zin which is rose).

Chitown B wrote:And Zinfandel isn't white (except White Zin which is rose).

Huh Did somebody say that Zinfandel wasn't red??

aschie30 wrote:

Chitown B wrote:And Zinfandel isn't white (except White Zin which is rose).

Huh Did somebody say that Zinfandel wasn't red??

the original poster: "I've checked around and various sites recommend whites like Chardonnay, Sauv Blanc, Zinfandel, Reisling/Gewurtz"

Gewürztraminer is way too sweet for me. Usually Reisling is too. I'm more of a dry red person, but I do enjoy fruit forward Chainti's and Pinot's too.

Chitown B wrote:Gewürztraminer is way too sweet for me. Usually Reisling is too. I'm more of a dry red person, but I do enjoy fruit forward Chainti's and Pinot's too.

Depends on the Gewurz. You can get an Alsatian with a lot more going on, as viaChgo pointed out. To me, though, the Gewurz/Riesling pairing with a turkey is a tad predictable, but I could see why it's done given the side dishes. Geez, a traditional Thanksgiving meal has got to be the most disjointed meal in terms of flavor profiles.

The perfect solution: Serve a red and a white. And drink both.

aschie30 wrote:The perfect solution: Serve a red and a white. And drink both.

This is the correct answer!

viaChgo wrote:

aschie30 wrote:The perfect solution: Serve a red and a white. And drink both.

This is the correct answer!

aschie30 wrote:The perfect solution: Serve a red and a white. And drink both.

But then what do your guests drink?