Anything can work when pairing wines with Thanksgiving feasts

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Sweet potatoes. Cranberry sauce. Turkey. Stuffing. Green bean casserole. Pumpkin pie. Pecan pie.

The expansive traditional Thanksgiving feast can leave diners with two big questions:

1. Where do I start eating?

2. What do I drink with this?

Pairing a single wine to the variety of flavors on a Turkey Day table can be overwhelming.

"That's a real hard one. Are you doing the normal fare? We're going to need about 10 wines, because there's no one wine that goes," says Steve Marvin, manager of the wine department at Wray's Chalet on Summitview Avenue. "The normal big Thanksgiving spread, there's just so many things going on."

Wray's at the Chalet Plaza has one of the biggest wine selections in the state, Marvin said, with wines from more than 200 state wineries and hundreds more from across the nation and globe. Paring that selection down to a few to serve with a big meal is as much about a customer's personal preference as it is about the dishes being served, Marvin said.

"In a normal situation, I tend to recommend Rieslings and gewurztraminer; they both have a little bit of sweetness to them. They match up well with a lot of the things that are going on at Thanksgiving," he said.

A plus side to the feast is that turkey is a relatively neutral flavor and can be paired with a variety of things, depending on your preference, according to David Lowe, owner of Wineglass Cellars in Zillah.

"A turkey is sort of a neutral sort of food," Lowe said. "We've often suggested zinfandel with a turkey dinner because it flavors a lot of things. It's a big, jammy, bold thing so it can stand up to cranberry sauce and anything else you might have."

Lowe and Marvin recommend serving a variety of wines and building on the flavors as the meal progresses.

"You try to complement everything as it goes," Lowe said. "It's like a song that starts with an intro and has a beginning, a middle and an end. If you have more than two people for dinner, if you have six, then you can go through four bottles and try a lot of different things, building on certain dishes rather than hit the turkey."

Breaking the meal down into its various parts -- appetizers, salads, main course and dessert -- can help with wine pairings.

When thinking of appetizers, many wine drinkers tend toward sparkling wines. Treveri Cellars, which opened in Yakima a year ago today, exclusively sells sparkling wines, said co-owner Julie Grieb.

While sparkling wines are often relegated to pre- or post-meal fare, Grieb said she's seeing more people picking up bottles to pair with the meal. The red and white sparkling varieties can be paired just as a still wine would, she said.

"We have a lot of people who are picking up wines for the holidays to actually have with their turkey," she said.

Grieb likes to let people try the wines and decide which flavors they like best rather than suggesting pairings, but Lowe recommends the ros or brut.

"You can't start with turkey -- you've got to have something beforehand," Lowe said. "We always start Thanksgiving dinner with sparkling wine, and Treveri makes some of the best."

For appetizers, Mercer Estates in Prosser recommends beginning with a crisp wine, said Jenna Hannan, the winery's hospitality manager.

"We do the sauvignon blanc with a lot of the appetizer portion of the meal," she said. "It's a nice kind of fresh, crisp wine that warms up your pallet."

Mercer Estates sells holiday gift packs that feature two or three bottles of wine and recipe cards to take the guesswork out of holiday parties, Hannan said.

"We definitely do our off-dry Riesling for Thanksgiving, if you're doing kind of the traditional turkey and cranberry and stuffing," Hannan said. "We also like to, for our non-traditionalists, do our cabernet with like an herb-crusted rack of lamb, which is fun."

The key to Thanksgiving wine pairings is to remember that the meal is about the food, not the wine.

"If you're having traditional fare, this is not the time when you pull out a $100 bottle of a monster (cabernet) or something. The food is the feature here," Marvin said. "If I'm going to have a dinner when I'm really featuring the wine, I'll build the meal around the wine. ... It's such a conglomeration at Thanksgiving, have two or three different things -- Rieslings, the ross, the lighter reds. Those would be my three standard bearers."

With a large crowd, between three and six types of wines could be served, satisfying a broad selection of foods and tastes.

"Another Thanksgiving wine is pinot noir," Lowe said. "It's a very subtle wine, and turkey is subtle. You can go on the soft, subtle side with a pinot noir or smack yourself in the face with a good zin. (Turkey) is kind of a chameleon; it'll take on whatever you put with it.

"It's really a fun meal, a lot of different things," he said. "A syrah might even go really good with turkey."

Meal and pairing suggestions from Mercer Estates:

Goat Cheese with Olives, Lemon and Thyme

Wine: Mercer Sauvignon Blanc

1/2 cup assorted olives

3 fresh thyme sprigs

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 (4- to 5-ounce) fresh goat-cheese medallion or 2 (2-ounces) goat-cheese buttons

Crisp Rosemary Flatbread (such as La Panzanella Rosemary Croccantini)

Heat olives, thyme, oil, zest, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a small skillet or saucepan over low heat until fragrant (do not simmer). Cool to room temperature.

Serve olive mixture over goat cheese.

Apple Cranberry Chutney

Wine: Mercer 2009 Riesling

2 pounds apples of your choice.

2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup orange juice

3 tablespoons butter melted

2 teaspoons mustard seeds

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoons ground cloves

2 cups fresh cranberries

Peal, core, and cut apples into cubes.

Stir all ingredients in 13x9 baking dish except cranberries and roast for 1 hour at 400 degrees. Stir in cranberries and continue to roast until soft.

Mustard and Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb

Wine: Mercer Cabernet Sauvignon

11/2 cups fine fresh bread crumbs

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint

11/2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

31/2 tablespoons olive oil

3 frenched racks of lamb (8 ribs, about 11/2 pounds each), trimmed of all but a thin layer of fat, then brought to room temperature

2 tablespoons mustard

Stir together bread crumbs, parsley, mint, rosemary, salt, and pepper in a bowl, then drizzle with 21/2 tablespoons oil and toss until combined well.

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat to 400 degrees.

Season lamb with salt and pepper. Heat remaining tablespoon of oil in a large heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown lamb one rack at a time, turning once, about 4 minutes per rack. Transfer to a 13-by-9-by-2-inch roasting pan, arranging fatty sides up.

Spread fatty sides of each rack with 2 teaspoons mustard. Divide bread crumb mixture into 3 portions and pat each portion over mustard coating on each rack, gently pressing to adhere.

Roast lamb until thermometer inserted diagonally 2 inches into center registers 130 degrees (for medium-rare), 20 to 25 minutes, and transfer to a cutting board. Let stand 10 minutes, then cut into chops.

Ginger Crme Brule with Honey Nectarine

Wine: Mercer Estates Riesling

3 cups whipping cream

2 tablespoons (packed) coarsely grated peeled fresh ginger

10 large egg yolks

1 cup plus 4 teaspoons sugar

1 nectarine

1 tangerine or orange for zest

Honey

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine cream and ginger in heavy medium saucepan. Bring to simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat; let stand 20 minutes.

Strain cream into small bowl, pressing on solids in sieve. Whisk yolks and 1 cup sugar in medium bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in warm cream. Divide custard among eight 3/4-cup ramekins or custard cups. Place ramekins in large roasting pan. Pour enough warm water into pan to come halfway up sides of ramekins.

Bake custards just until set in center when pan is gently shaken, about 45 minutes.

Remove custards from water bath; chill uncovered until cold, at least 3 hours. Cover and chill overnight.

Preheat broiler.

Place custards on baking sheet. Sprinkle each with 1/2 teaspoon of remaining sugar. Broil until sugar melts and caramelizes, turning sheet for even browning, about 1 minute. Refrigerate custards until topping is cold and brittle, about 1 hour and up to 2 hours. Garnish custards with fresh nectarines that have been tossed in a little honey and zest.

* Savannah Tranchell can be reached at 509-577-7752 or stranchell@yakimaherald.com. Get more wine tips and recipes online at www.yakimaherald.com/blogs/appetite.