TCWE Thanksgiving 2024 Pack #1
Pricing available as supply lasts.
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Hi everyone –
HERE WE GO! It’s time to get ready for the greatest holiday of the year.
I love Thanksgiving so so much. I love the rituals, the classic menu, the wine pairing, the long nap after eating, and the joy of gathering. It’s a special night for us, and one that I cherish.
When it comes to what to pair with the dinner, I have a few rules.
Rule #1: Sparkling wine should always be served during the day, while the turkey is in the oven.
Rule #2: Turkey itself is a blank canvas. The flavors are often found in the side dishes and the gravy. Thus, pair wines to those flavors.
Rule #3: You should always have a variety of wines open on the table, and if possible at least two glasses per person. The joy and fun is in experimenting.
Rule #4: Cranberry sauce is a wine killer. So I save it for after the main course but before dessert, as a palate cleanser.
We’ve put together what we’re calling “Thanksgiving Pack #1” due to the fact that only 36 units are available, and we expect it to sell out. We’ll come out with Pack #2 next week.
Here ya go!
Argyle Brut 2019
Nothing beats a bottle of Argyle. The sparkling wine specialists of Willamette Valley continue to set the bar when it comes to bubbles. The 2019 vintage was particularly good for them, and the resulting wine is firing on all cylinders. Fun fact: Argyle has more wines in the Wine Spectator Top 100 over the last 20 years than ANY other winery on the planet.
Argyle is a perfect example of a brand that has become so good and so dependable for so many years that it’s not considered “cool” for many young sommeliers. I think the same is happening with Ridge Vineyards. In due time they’ll come around. While they’re sipping on their rando Pet-Nat that smells like a frog farm, I’ll happily be sipping my Argyle and smiling.
Foris Dry Gewürztraminer 2021
This is the ultimate wine for Thanksgiving.
Gewürztraminer is so exotic, so haunting, so beautiful. I love it so much. And when you’re dealing with the cornucopia of flavors that side dishes can bring, this wine can handle it. Medium bodied, snappy, and so complex in the glass. It’s the kind of wine I almost forget to taste because I spend so much time just smelling it.
Foris is a super cool winery in the Rouge Valley of Oregon, which is south of Willamette and just north of the California border. It’s one of the most beautiful wine regions in the country, but still under the radar of most tourists. More info on the Rouge Valley (check out those photos!)
Tablas Creek Patelin de Tablas Rosé 2023
Like Argyle, and the fore-mentioned Ridge Vineyards, I think Tablas Creek is another brand that has become predictably awesome but is not embraced by the cool-kid sommeliers. The story of Tablas Creek is part of the fabric of the California wine scene, and Jason Haas does more than most owners/winemakers when it comes to putting ideas and opinions out there. His blog is legendary in the wine business. Check out this post to get a sense of it.
This Rosé is serious stuff. This aint your strawberry-acid simpleton.
Layer upon layer (upon layer) of delicate red fruits, floral aromas, firm acid bordering on minerality, and structure make of a rosé of such compelling quality it’s impossible to not love.
From the winery’s website:
The Tablas Creek Vineyard Patelin de Tablas Rosé is a rosé blend in the tradition of Provence, produced from three red Rhône varietals: Grenache, Mourvèdre, and Counoise, with an addition of Vermentino. The wine incorporates fruit from eleven top Rhône vineyards in Paso Robles, each vineyard selected for its quality. Like most rosé wines from the Rhône Valley, it is based on the bright strawberry fruit and fresh acidity of Grenache, with additions of deeper red fruit and structure from Mourvèdre, spice from Counoise, and citrusy lift from Vermentino — a white grape that is increasingly important in many Provence rosés.
Check out these accolades!
Kiona Lemberger, Red Mountain, 2021
This is a regular addition to our Thanksgiving table for two reasons. First, it’s just damn delicious. Second, it’s something fun, strange, and rare.
Lemberger is a grape rarely planted in America, much less on one of the top sites in the country (Red Mountain). Kiona was the first winery in America to bottle a Lemberger, in 1980. The grape also goes by the name Blaüfrankisch in its native Austria. More info at Winesearcher: https://www.wine-searcher.com/grape-550-blaufrankisch-lemberger
From the winery website:
Kiona Vineyards and Winery produced the first commercial bottling of Lemberger in the United States in 1980. Since then, our original 1.8 acre planting has grown to 13.1 acres. Lemberger is typically grown in cooler regions; Red Mountain is a blast furnace by comparison, which results in a riper, rounder profile not found in cooler areas.
An intrinsically drinkable cult classic over the last 40+ vintages, Kiona Estate Lemberger revels in its unorthodoxy. This compelling, medium-bodied, fruit-forward bottling pairs easily with food, offering a rewarding break from the mundane. An extremely gentle neutral oak èlevage for the 2021 version translates to minimal oak influence, allowing the fruit to shine.
Here’s the tech sheet for the wine:
There you have it! A perfect little four-pack of yumminess for Thanksgiving.
Only 36 units available, first come, first served. Thanksgiving 2024 Pack #2 will be released upon this one selling out.
Thanks, everyone!
Jason Kallsen
Sommelier and founder/owner of Twin Cities Wine Education
Offer and special pricing are available as inventory lasts