Video: Food & Wine Pairing: Thanksgiving Turkey

This Season: Tailgating; New Year, New You; Tax Time

Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings demands a light, fruity slightly sweet wine. Learn how to pair Thanksgiving turkey and wine from a professional writer, speaker and sommelier in this free culinary video.

Comments

Video Transcript

A lot of people like to pair a nice, fancy, special occasion wine with their Thanksgiving meal. However, that can be kind of tricky. Let's talk about Thanksgiving dinner. At my house, it's the most psychizo meal of the year. We've got the turkey, but then we've got the marshmallows, and we've got the cranberries, and we've got the sweet potatoes, and we've got the spice, and we've got the salt, and we've got the gravy. In other words, we have a lot of tastes and flavors and textures going on. Adding a nice big, oaky Chardonnay to this is nothing but disaster. What you have to do with such a meal with all these different tastes and flavors and textures, is keep the wine very light, very fruity and maybe even a little bit sweet. A slightly sweet Rieslig or a Gewurztraminer is perfect. If you must have a red wine, stick with a very light red wine like Beaujolais or Pinot Noir. What you want to stay away from is high levels of alcohol, high levels of oak, and high levels of tannin. After all, you don't need to fall asleep from the alcohol and you don't need to start a fight with your relatives with too much alcohol, either. So, stick to something nice, and fruity, and light. A Riesling, a Gewurztraminer, a Pinot Noir, or Beaujolais, it's the perfect match for Thanksgiving.