Category Archives: Riesling

Need help picking a Thanksgiving wine? These top experts make it easy

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You haven’t yet decided what Thanksgiving wine to serve. Or you’re unsure about the selections you’ve made. And time is short.

The anxiety!

At The Washington Post, wine writers Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg know full well the pressures we’re under choosing wines for this annual feast.

“Even avid wine lovers can be struck with a temporary case of oenophobia — fear of wine — around Thanksgiving,” they say, with the wisdom of being award-winning wine authors. “The prospect of choosing a bottle that will please all of your guests and complement all of your dishes can perplex the most confident holiday host.”

But don’t despair. There’s a rich bounty of tips and picks across the Web, just waiting to be harvested.

Page and Dornenburg, for example, serve up a batch of ideas “to help calm any oenophobic tendencies.”

Among their several selections, a couple that caught my eye were the Australian sparkling Shiraz “bursting with berries and bubbles” and the Napa Valley Merlot that’s sure to come alive “with impressive blackberry and tart cherry flavors.”

Meanwhile, at epicurious, Natalie MacLean follows up on her earlier suggestions for Thanksgiving pairings with a list of “10 Top Thanksgiving Wines,” ranging from a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and a German Riesling to a French Pinot Noir and an Italian Valpolicella.

All chosen because they’re “generous, juicy, fruit-forward wines that will both moisten the turkey and complement many of the side dishes on the table.”

Several full Thanksgiving menus accompany wine selections at Bon Appétit, leaving little guesswork about what goes along with everything from a country-style menu to a vegetarian feast.

For example, the Prosper Maufoux 2005 Beaujolais, Burgundy, a “food-friendly” wine boasting “plum and cherry flavors” seems a nicely priced country crowd-pleaser at $12.

Even Martha Stewart has some advice — a pocketbook-pleasing tidbit from bygone years: “Mid-priced is best. It’s not necessary to splurge on wine for Thanksgiving. That’s because the traditional menu has a lot of sweet elements, such as cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes, that aren’t flattering to complex and subtle wine. A well-made wine with more straightforward character will likely taste better.”

And the best advice of all comes from Page and Dornenburg: “After all is said and done, don’t sweat it. Thanksgiving ultimately is not about the wine, but about being grateful for the love of those you’re with.”

Let’s drink to that.

‘Turkey wine’ and other Thanksgiving wine bargains to the rescue

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Good news and bad news about Thanksgiving.

The good news: such a wide variety of delicious things to eat. 

The bad: such a wide variety of delicious things to eat — which can make pairing the right wine enough to give you mental indigestion.

But don’t despair.

Wine tasters around the nation are graciously coming to the rescue (tough work, but somebody’s got to do it).

Like white?

If you’re thinking of going with a white, for example, an eclectic  cast of tasters in Nashville — including reps of wine distributors, a wine collector, a sommelier and food columnist — came up with a tasty bunch of recommendations while chowing down with turkey, dressing, gravy and cranberry sauce to assure mouth-watering harmony.

Some of their selections fit nicely within the Wine News Review fairly frugal affordability index, or at least the holiday version of it.

Among their selections, Gewürztraminer, aka “turkey wine” because it goes so well with the main dish. One stood out:

2006 Covey Run ($8.99) — serves up a “delightful aroma of cooked cling peaches, white pepper and floral notes.” It was the tasters’ favorite: “The wine withstood competing tastes and was not as sweet as the others.”

Second was a 2006 Columbia Winery Cellarmaster’s Riesling ($13.99) — tasters agreed that its “fruit and perfume ‘rocked’ with the multi-flavored meal.”

Versatile Pinot

Stacy Slinkard, wine guide at About.com, offers a list of 10 Thanksgiving wine suggestions, nine of which are $10 or under.

Her number one recommendation is a California Kendall Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay 2005, ($10), finding it a “delicious compilation of fruit and smoke, full-bodied and balanced.”

She also cites a few reds, including another Californian, a Rex Goliath Pinot Noir, ($9), which she finds supple and versatile enough “to go with everything from hors d’oeuvres to the main dish.”

To start off the festivities with some bubbly cheer, she suggests a Korbel Champagne Brut ($10), “a champagne stand by that is perfect for party goers.”

Don’t worry, be happy

While acknowledging the banquet-sized range of flavors to be found on a Thanksgiving table, Peter M. Gianotti at Long Island’s Newsday, takes a don’t-worry-be-happy approach: ” … drink what you like, whether it’s apple cider, brown ale or bourbon.”

But if wine is your Thanksgiving drink of choice, he recommends a diverse collection of whites and reds, including a nicely priced, “berry-driven” 2006 Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Pinot Noir ($14).

Speaking of nicely priced, he suggests a couple Italian Proseccos for the celebratory sparkling wine selection: La Vendemmia ($10), Lunetta ($13).

Of course, there are many other wine tasters standing graciously by to take the wine anxiety out of Thanksgiving. Stay tuned to Wine News Review in coming days for more of their suggestions.

Tip: Print out this list, and for that matter the lists from the links above, when you head to your local wine shop. If none is available, ask the salesperson to recommend something similar, and similarly priced.

Weekend wine list — experts’ picks: ‘terrific’ Riesling to ‘seductive’ Syrah

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Comparing the picks: A survey of recent selections from popular wine experts. Whenever there’s an option, I highlight the more-affordable wines, focusing on possible choices for weekend purchases. Check their websites for full descriptions and other picks:

2004 750 Langwerth Von Simmern Riesling Kabinett Rheingau, Germany:
Natalie MacLean — you’ll find it to be a “terrific, well-balanced riesling with refreshing aromas of lime and citrus,” goes well with chicken, pork, ham. $22.95

Pacific Rim Chenin Blanc:
Jerry Shriver — “hits you with a seductive flowery bouquet, which leads to faintly sweet and lush pear flavors and brown-spice notes” — recommended with spicy Asian seafood dishes. $12

Cockburn’s Ten Year Old Tawny Port:
Jay McInerney — “lighter and mellower than the Vintage Ports from this house and slightly drier in style than other tawnies.” $26.99

Etim Blanco 2005 Montsant:
Jancis Robinson — she calls this 100% Garnacha Blanca “a revelation and a bargain … a full bodied, flavour-packed yet refreshing dry white.” £6.99

Stefano Moccagatta 2004 Tannat:
Edward Deitch — “one of the best red wines I’ve tasted this year … elegant and refined, full of dark berry fruit — blackberry, blueberry and boysenberry.” $26

Colli Orientali del Friuli, Pinot Grigio ‘Ramato’, Visintini (2006):
decanter.com — “marvellous wine from Grave del Friuli breaks the Pinot Grigio mould,” with its pale copper colour and “lovely purity of fruit.” £8.95

2003 Goose Ridge Vineyards Columbia Valley Syrah:
Lynne Char Bennett — a “rewarding” wine whose aspects include “dark woody notes, peppery bacon, extracted blackberry,” among an ample list of Washington state Syrah and Rhone-style blends featured here. $20

Tip: Print out this list and bring it to you local wine shop — even if a specific favorite isn’t available, ask the salesperson to recommend something similar. Or try browsing the latest wine reports from this custom collection of hundreds of news websites — filtered for bargains, continuously updated, and quick and easy to scan:

  • Reds (from Beaujolais to Zinfandel)
  • Whites (from Chablis to Sauvignon Blanc).

To hit closer to home, try WNR’s Advanced Wine Search tool and see what wine finds local columnists and wine experts may be writing about in your area. Once there, just type in your city and state (within quotation marks, as in, “Napa, California”), to get results ranked by relevance.

Or dig into some perennial standbys at SFGate.com’s Top 100 Wines of 2006, the Top 100 of 2006 list (PDF download) from Wine Spectator and the list of 50 Wines You Can Always Trust from Food & Wine.

Attracted to a bottle that’s advertised in the local paper or sitting on the local wine store shelf?

Do a little background research with Wine Enthusiast’s free, searchable Wine Buying Guide—either with a specific name or by types and price. For a little extra info, try Robert Parker’s handy Vintage Chart. Or see what the online wine community says about it with the search tools at cork’d, snooth or Wine Log.

Once you’ve selected the wine, you naturally want to decide what to eat with it. For some savvy guidance, try Natalie MacLean’s Wine & Food Matcher, which boasts a database of 360,000 wine-food pairings.

The Web is about community. So take a moment to comment about your experience with a particular wine — to help steer others to or away from it. And of course, have a great weekend!

The Web’s latest wine buzz, 10/3/07

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Tune in to what top wine bloggers and experts are decanting into cyberspace with handpicked highlights of their latest and greatest.

A recent trip to central New York state’s Finger Lakes region served as a double eye-opening experience for Financial Times wine columnist Jancis Robinson — first, the “exceptional quality” of the Rieslings made there and, second, “how little they seem to be appreciated, or even known, in New York City.” An abundance of tourists and the warming effects of the lakes have helped an increasing number of wine producers sprout up in the essentially white-wine area, says Robinson. And they’re getting an assist from their U.S. Senator, Hillary Clinton, seen by locals as a “true missionary” for the wine-growing industry because of her advocacy in Washington. Robinson’s column also cites six “excellent” regional wines, including dry and sweet Rieslings.

Speaking of Rieslings, Food & Wine serves up a “brilliant” Australian pairing of, well, food and wine. The focus is on renowned Riesling maker Jeffrey Grosset and superstar chef Neil Perry, both of whom, well, like to eat and drink. And eat and drink they do — with the meeting’s menu including the kind of chicken curry “you find bubbling in a blackened pot on fishing boats throughout Asia” to go with a 2005 Grosset Piccadilly Chardonnay — one of a half-dozen wines (all recent releases, because, Grosset explains, “I don’t rate older wines as being necessarily better than younger ones, just different”). About as mouth-watering as a food/wine story can be.

Maybe the cork ain’t dead yet? It’s becoming increasingly clear to winemakers that using screw caps means being “extra careful” during their wine making, according to this New York Times piece by Erik Asimov: Screw caps prevent the dreaded cork taint that causes an estimated 5 percent of corked wines to go bad, but it turns out that screw caps are now recognized by some as occasionally having their own problems — something called “reduction,” which in layman’s terms translates into aromas such as burned rubber, cabbage and rotten eggs.