Thanksgiving has been an annual important day of the American calendar since 1621. Family members, often scattered across several states, gather in one place and celebrate the occasion with a lavish dinner.
The most popular Thanksgiving meal is stuffed oven-baked turkey. About 50 million animals are now eaten in a single evening each year. How could it be otherwise, the toasts are made almost entirely with American wines.
These white wines are perfect for Thanksgiving
A hearty Thanksgiving dinner calls for impressive, full-bodied white wines. Light, delicate wines like Pinot Gris that come from a cold region and are aged in steel tanks probably won’t be able to withstand a very spicy turkey.
First choice is Chardonnays that are matured in oak barrels, such as those from Napa Valley, Sonoma, or Monterey. Typical for this type of wine is an alcohol content of 13.5 percent or more, a strong body and high flavor intensity. Depending on the style of the winery, buttery or yeast flavors are often added, which further complicate the wines.
American Sauvignon Blanc can be inherently strong, especially if it has been fermented in oak barrels or aged for several months. Intense notes of gooseberry, elderberry, asparagus and tropical fruits blend easily into most Thanksgiving dishes.
These red wines go well with Thanksgiving
The search for a strong red wine shouldn’t be too difficult with American wines. Here it depends on which grape varieties you like best. By far the most popular US red wines are made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Noir, and Zinfandel.
Zinfandel is an alcoholic, full-bodied red wine with distinctive, often lightly cooked aromas of red and dark berries, as well as vanilla and chocolate. Zinfandel red wines are generally relatively inexpensive compared to other black grape varieties. Other grape varieties are often added to the best wines to make them even more complex and structured.
You should pay attention to the fact that it is a very strong specimen, matured in oak barrels with Pinot Noir. Pinot Noirs ripened in steel tanks from colder regions are probably too thin-bodied for a hearty Thanksgiving meal. Exciting areas of American Pinot Noir can be found, for example, in Sonoma, California, or in the states of Oregon and Washington.