For a great start with appetizers, soup and salad, I’ll serve the La Petite Marquise Crémant de Loire Brut ($12.99 from K&L Wine Merchants).  It’s a sparkling wine made like champagne, but it sits light and fresh on the palate without the yeasty taste or a big price.  It is crafted from a blend of Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc.

Going a bit out of the box, I picked up two Darcy Kent wines from Livermore after attending a Darcy Kent Vineyards pairing dinner at the Thunderbird Lodge in Lake Tahoe: a 2017 Gruner Veltliner from Rava Blackjack Vineyard in Monterey and a 2018 Victories Rose Malbec from the San Francisco Bay.  The Gruner is dry but flavorful with white peach, pepper and a bit of lime. The Malbec rose is lush as it was crafted with a slight bit of residual sugar which makes the wine creamy on the palate.  Both these wines will sparkle with the herbal flavors of the meal and the roasted butternut squash as a side.  Note: these selections are both low in alcohol as well.

For red wines, I am offering the Pardon & Fils Les Mouilles Julienas 2017 at $17.99 and the Domaine Pardon Cuvee Hugo Fleurie 2017 at $19.99, both from Total Wine.  Yes, this is Gamay from Beaujolais.  I love Gamay.  Not the market driven swill released in November which was nothing but a ploy to get rid of a lot of wine they could not otherwise sell.  The southern half of Beaujolais makes that inferior wine.  The northern half of Beaujolais has different soil, has slopes and the area has 10 ‘Cru’s’ which, in a fantastic year, can be hard to tell apart from a true Burgundy wine.  The two wines I have chosen are from Cru vineyards: Fleurie and Julienas. 

I will open the wines and explain what we have to our guests. I will encourage them to take small tastes of each wine before dinner. Then, all the bottles will go on the dinner table for them to revisit with the meal. It becomes an empowering game for our guests to be able to evaluate the wines and usually makes for some lively conversation because, of course, no one ever has an opinion!

For dessert, I will be serving a 2004 Château Tirecul la Gravière “Cuvée Chateau” Monbazillac. It’s 500 ml and it’s priced at $19.99 from K&L. It has some age on it and will be lucious with some Marscapone on top of that pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving!