What’s on the wine menu at your house today?
The WannabeWinos will choose from: 2 Roses, 1 Sancerre, 1 Pinot Blanc, 4 Gruner Veltliners, 3 Pinot Noirs, 2 Cabernet Francs, 1 Grenache, 1 Sauternes, 1 Tokaji and one Viognier blend dessert wine.
Gobble Gobble!
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What to drink with the ubiquitous turkey?
Year in and year out people beseech me with requests for the perfect pairing for your Thanksgiving meal. Not to mention the thousands of pitches I receive from wineries and PR folks claiming to have the best, most excellent ever, wine for your holiday feast. Let’s get this out of the way: No perfect wine for Thanksgiving exists. Thanksgiving offers sweet, savory, sticky, dry, creamy, and a dozen other food adjectives, dishes. You would be asking for a miracle for something that goes well with both sweet potato marshmallow casserole and cranberry sauce (nothing goes with cranberry sauce). With that said, I’ll tell you what I purchased/am pulling from the cellar for the feast in the Wannabe Wino household. Take that for what you will.
4 bottles of assorted sparkling – Prosecco, Cremant de Alsace, Champagne, and Brut from CA.
2 bottles of Chablis. I went to lunch last week with the folks from Pure Chablis (more on that later) and fell in love.
2 bottles of Gruner Veltliner. A family tradition.
1 bottle of Napa Sauvignon Blanc.
1 bottle of Sancerre.
4 bottles of Pinot Noir. All from the US, various appellations.
2 bottles of Cabernet Franc. One from Maryland and one from VA. Gotta represent locally.
Various local hard dry apple ciders.
Who wants to come over? Gobble gobble.
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My little turkey says “Gobble gobble!”
From the Wannabe Wino Family to yours, wishing you a Thanksgiving full of family , friends, good food and wine!
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*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from the PR firm for the winery
Oh how I love bubbles! I even made my own bubbles with some of my blogger friends in 2009. It was just disgorged and shipped to us recently, I’m excited to tell you about it. Back to the point though. Bubbles. And yummy bubbles. You can’t beat that. I’m adding another wine to my Thanksgiving wine recommendations for 2011. The wine n question is the Domaine Carneros Cuvee de la Pompadour. It clocks in at 12% alcohol by volume, has a traditional Champagne closure, and retails for about $30.
Four takeaways from this wine:
1.) I didn’t want to stop drinking this wine to take my notes because I was afraid Mr. Wannabe Wino would take more than his share while I took notes.
2.) This wine would be perfect with your turkey. It’s a rose and it’s a sparkling wine, can’t beat that!
3.) I would easily pay $30 for this wine.
4.) In fact, I will on my next wine buying trip.
On the nose I got raspberry, florals, cherry, slight apple, and wax notes. In the mouth I found peach, pear, raspberry, and strawberry. On the palate the peach stood out the most, and tasted very fresh. Overall the wine had great bubbles and acidity and is bone dry.
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To all my American readers, enjoy your turkey day! I hope you are able to spend the day with family, friends, good food, and of course, delicious wine!
Filed under: Misc, Thanksgiving | 2 Comments »
I hope all those celebrating today enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!
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I know this isn’t a food blog, but sometimes I can’t resist sharing what goes on in the Wannabe Wino kitchen. I think Matt wanted to compete, or at least show that he can do cool things too, with my delicious Thanksgiving meal…
so on the morning after Thanksgiving, he pulled out this.
And his drill (new drill bit that we sterilized for those who are concerned about that sort of thing!).
And he made a spectacle in the kitchen to impress our guests, serving them Ostrich Egg! He was inspired by “Battle Egg” on the Iron Chef and decided this was something we had to try. So he opened it and I cooked up a huge batch of scrambled eggs for our guests!
I suggest serving at your next brunch with Mimosas or perhaps a nice Moscato d’Asti.
Filed under: Misc, Thanksgiving | 6 Comments »
15 pounds of turkey (with all but a drumstick gone as of lunch today!)
10 pounds of potatoes
8 guests
6 bottles of wine
3 pounds of green beans
1 pounds of cranberries
1 package of burnt rolls (oops)
1 burn and 1 accidental grating of my thumb
=5 pounds heavier and one exhausted wine blogger.
Another Thanksgiving under my belt, my second, but my first in our new house!
Back to work and regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow, I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and didn’t have to loosen their belts too much!
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I am in full prep for Thanksgiving. Hosting for Matt’s family, 8 of us total. That’s the most people I’ve ever cooked a meal for, so I’m a wee bit nervous!
I’m not big on the whole “here’s my ultimate Thanksgiving pairings” post thing, but as an fyi, we are having an Austrian Riesling provided by Matt’s Aunt and Uncle, two lovely Roses, one from domaine547 and the other from WineQ, and a raspberry Merlot from a local vineyard for dessert. I’ve also got a few bottles of Pinot Noir stuck off to the side in case anyone wants some red with dinner!
I wish you and your’s a happy and safe Thanksgiving and I hope your turkeys cook perfectly! I’ll likely be off the posting while my house is full of relatives, but I’ll attempt to pop on.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Filed under: Misc, Thanksgiving, Wine | 5 Comments »
Apparently this is the week where I revisit wines I tasted in November. Tonight it was a 2005 Felta Creek Summer White (De la Montanya). I first tasted the Summer White over Thanksgiving, but we had company and I didn’t exactly write the best notes, really just a general overview with perhaps one specific reference to the flavors. For some reason at the time I felt awkard sitting there writing detailed notes in front of company. Have since gotten over that though and now I explain what I’m doing since many of our friends don’t know I write a wine blog and I’ve certainly gotten confused looks when I whip out a note pad and bury my nose in the wine!
And again, since I tasted this wine quite a while ago I find myself wondering if I’m getting better at picking out flavors and aromas or if it was simply the lack of notes I took last time?
Anywho, the wine had a real cork closure and cost us $15.20 in a wine club shipment. I can’t find anything about the alcohol level and the bottle is long gone. I served it with ravioli topped with fresh parmesan and butter. And actually, I think my belief back in November that this would be a good Thanksgiving wine was spot on, as the buttery cheesy flavors in the ravioli were easily cut through by the crisp and acidic structure of this wine.
On the nose I found pineapple, papaya, citrus and an overall sense of tropical fruit. In the mouth I found citrs, green apple, pear and just the slightest tinge of honey. The wine was crisp and light and the tropical fruits made me want to be sitting in a hammock on a beach somwhere with crystal clear water. And sun, lots of sun. Perhaps I’m projecting my desire for better weather as it has once again turned cold and I think I heard a report of a “wintery mix” on the radio. Thankfully we are off to sunny shiny CA for a week and a bit, so I will miss some of the delightful ups and downs of Spring on the East Coast.
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