Thanksgiving whines: Make sure the turkey is on your table and not in the bottle

One of the nice things about living in England is that I don’t feel compelled to roast a turkey every Thanksgiving. Let’s face it, eating turkey is like kissing your aunt, and besides that, who wants to drink a wine dull enough to make a match with it? It’s bad enough that I’ll have to eat some at Christmas, since it’s my friend Amanda’s turn to host the big lunch this year, and Amanda (who probably cast a write-in vote for Herbert Hoover in the recent election) always has turkey. When it’s my turn to host Christmas, we have goose or duck, which would probably have been the national choice if the Puritans hadn’t been such bad shots – obviously turkeys were the only bird they could hit.
Anyway, as many of you will be going with the Barry Manilow of poultry regardless, here are some wine thoughts, offered sincerely. You have to play the cards you’ve been dealt, after all.
First, consider stuffing lots of chopped pancetta, rosemary and lemon zest under the skin, and more herbs and the rest of the lemon into the cavity, and basting it with red wine every half-hour. Every little bit helps.
Then, the usual advice is to say that turkey is versatile, so lots of different wines go with it. This is a cop-out, like saying Tom Cruise is energetic and well-spoken and could therefore do Shakespeare; you can see where this is going, can’t you? Turkey is not versatile, turkey is bland. Even chenin blanc can wrestle it to the ground. But basically, forget white wine – when combined with turkey it’s like modern-art videos, something that leaves you scratching your head, vaguely distracted, and wondering what you’re doing here.
As so often with almost all food, it’s got to be red. Ah ha, you say. Not so fast, I say. Danger lurks. Cabernet sauvignon? Well, remember those Western movies where a guy gets shot and they have to take the bullet out or he’ll die, so one cowboy heats a Bowie knife over the fire while two others hold him down and another jams a stick of wood in his mouth for when he screams? There’s your Cabernet experience these days, and no thanks. Zinfandel? Well, Joel Peterson of Ravenswood likes to crow, “No wimpy wines,” and he’s right – any bird that goes with today’s zins is going to be a raptor.
The answer, of course, is pinot noir, which is Mother Nature’s way of telling you that combining wine and food is a really good idea. It’s a great dancer, light and stylish, and like any great dancer it makes its partners look good. There’s certainly a limit to how elegant a turkey can get, but it will be much improved and almost refined if it’s next to the Fred Astaire of wine (obviously, it’s even better with duck or goose, but I’ll try to keep to the point here). The black-cherry, power-with-finesse, “iron fist in a velvet glove” aspect also fits in nicely with cranberry sauce, sage-oriented stuffing, mashed pumpkin and caramelized onions …I think I’m coming around, actually. You could have a good time.
And of course, you can be a locavore, happily drinking Sonoma Valley wines. I may have begun with a quibble about turkey, but I have to say I miss its best mate: One of the not-so-nice things about living in England is that we hardly get any Sonoma pinot noir here. So, drink up – you’ve got another good reason to celebrate.