White Thanksgiving

There were two Thanksgiving dinners yesterday, one early in the day with wines and one later in the day with water. The wine accompanied dinner was obviously my favorite of the two.

By pre-agreement there were only white wines at the dinner and all three were good but very different. Each made it's own mark and the day proved an interesting experiment.

The menu, of course, was turkey and we found profound differences in the wines as it related to the bird.

The three wines were a 2007 Handley Gerwurztraminer from Medocino county in California, a 2007 Leitz Rudesheimer Klosterlay Kabinett from the Rheingau, and a 2008 Huber Gruner Veltliner from Austria.

The Handley had the Gerwurz funk going on in spades; musky taste, cloves, cardamon, etc. After several samples we decided it was best with the dark meat of the turkey. The extra body in the wine paired well with the slight gaminess in the dark meat. It tended to overpower the white meat from the turkey breast.

The Leitz was delicate, smelled of lime zest and wet slate and was a great match with the breast meat, but was overpowered somewhat by the darker meat. The acid was super on this wine.

The Gruner didn't really match with the turkey at all, but it really perked up with the side dishes of green beans, corn, bread stuffing. Amazingly it matched very well with a cranberry and orange salad.

Three good wines, good food and good friends.