Turkey Tackling Strategy

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I've had, literally, singles of suggestions and questions for Thanksgiving wine pairing, I knew the time to type to my readers is now. I addressed this very topic last year, here.

Often, Thanksgiving Day turns into a day of football, wine drinking and at some point in the afternoon, a smorgasbord of a meal. None of the 3 are optimal fine wine drinking events.

I have a few rules to follow when addressing a Turkey Day wine list.

1. Know Thy Audience
How many wine drinkers vs. people who drink wine will be taking part?

If you have a family member that'll be filling their glass to the brim with whatever red happens to be opened, you probably don't want to deplete your precious stash on her. No offense.

I advise, stick with decent, non offensive, crowd pleasers. There's plenty of fruit-forward blends and zins under $14 that'll do just fine.

2. Keep Wine/Food Pairing Expectations to a Minimum
I touched on this last year, but a traditional Thanksgiving Day spread isn't really conducive to wine. I mean, would you ever go to a fancy restaurant with a deep wine list and ask the Sommelier what pairs well with turkey, gravy and cranberry sauce?

My suggestion, get a kick ass bottle and crack it tonight. Tomorrow, go Riesling or a dark beer. I'm kinda wishing I'd filled my 4 Peaks growler with Oatmeal Stout while I was there for lunch today.

3. Pace Yourself
The Lions game starts at 10 am EST. I'll probably call it a day around 8 pm. That's a long time to balance being on my best behavior and keeping a buzz. I'm pretty confident in my ability though.

My buddy John Harshbarger is now working for the fire department, and works Thursday. He said Turkey Days are never without incident. "Someone's always burnin' the side of their trailer from the turkey frier or beatin' up their old lady. We'll be busy." Do your part to keep them out of your neighborhood.

Now, onto my line-up. My dad's in charge of bringing the Monchhof.

I grabbed a few other semi-sweet whites and these reds:

That's 2 Zins, 1 Petite Sirah and 2 Pinots.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Celebrating Things Worth Celebrating

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The in-laws have departed, which means I now have time to catch up on wine consumption tales.

As most of you know, Beth and I celebrated 10 years of mawwiage.

I knew that if we could get through Father John's bad breath during our ceremony, we'd be good for 10 years, easy.

Last night, heading home from Johnny's place (more on the tremendous wine we had in a few), I heard Rihanna's somehow catchy song that says, "Shine bright like a diamond," a good 85 times. I thought, 'you know what's cooler than saying "diamond" 85 times? Being named Neil Diamond, that's what.' Then, BOOM, next blog post topic came to mind.

The "America" Level - Neil gets no more powerful than this song. And on Veteran's Day, which, thank you Jared for your service, this song somehow gets awesomer. Seriously, give it a listen. Tell me you don't get chills. If you don't, you're a terrorist.

You may or may not know that we celebrated by cruising to Pasadena for dinner at the Vertical Wine Bistro, thanks to my co-worker, Veronica's solid recommendation. This place had a cool, hip, trendy vibe. Very good place. I give it 2 thumbs up, plus Beth's 2, making it a solid 4 thumbs up type of place.

Everything's better with pics:

Salted Carmel Ice Cream Sandwich. 

Fig & Burratta Salad. 

We brought wine, which I thought might be odd to bring wine to a wine bar, but they were fired up to cork and decant it.

I had a glass of the Seghesio Zin at the bar then we got after our bottle:

Yes, Tom, I recycled this pic from a night on your patio. 

I went Villa Creek 2010 Garnacha. We love the winery. We love their wine. It was as awesome as "America."I have double goosebumps from thinking of the wine and thinking of that song on a 4th of July night with fireworks blasting. 


The "Forever in Blue Jeans" Level. My personal favorite that may or may not be your favorite. Also, my karaoke go to.

We actually opened this on November 1st with Joe & Marie after a glass of Champagne from Weins. It was our way of double-dip celebrating.

Like the Jelly-of-the-Month Club, MYV's the gift that keeps on giving.

Last night, Johnny had a few people over to watch Jay Cutler get knocked to next week and the Bears lose at home to the Texans. The poor play by Chicago didn't stop us or the Hamiltons from enjoying a little wine.

The Cracklin' Rosie Level goes to last night's first bottle:

Black Kite 2009 Pinot Noir

Hot damn, that's a fine Pinot. Big, bold, racy and smooth. Just the way I like em! I'm not sure you could not be impressed by this wine. I'd love to try it side-by-side with the 2010 Belle Glos Clark & Telephone. Not sure I could say which one I think I like more. Both are awesome and in the same price range.

"Play it now. Play it now. Play it now my baby!"


The "Song Sung Blue" Level goes to our 2 bottle last night.

Feather ($40ish)

This bottle wasn't quite as disappointing as the reason I bought it, but it was close. Last year, Johnny and I had a bottle of wine wager on the Iowa/Michigan game. I lost as Michigan played like poop and picked this out at Hi Times on a strong recommendation from a lady working there. After a year of aging, we opened it last night and it fell pretty flat.

It had great color, a very nice nose, but did nothing exciting for anyone. Sort of like "Song Sung Blue."


And finally, we ended the night at the "Sweet Caroline" Level

Williams Selyem 2005 Pinot Noir Ferrington Vineyard

We went big to close the night and I'm very thankful for it. This was a beautiful bottle of wine. Why I didn't take a pic of the color, I'm not sure, but it was a gorgeous shade of purple. I said it looked like beet juice. I smelled and tasted a ton of strawberry flavors and it ended really smoothly. Wow, very nice.

Overall, I must say, I'm more of a Black Kite Pinot style drinker (bigger, bolder) but I can sure appreciate the quality of this bottle.

"So Good! So Good!"