I hope you have the same Pavlovian response to the word November that I do: The start of the holidays!
My favorite all-time holiday falls in November. You guessed it, Thanksgiving. I love planning the menu and discussing recipe ideas with family members. I love cooking with my family. I love the beautifully decorated table and the mouthwatering array of dishes. I love choosing the wines to go with the meal. And I love gathering with my family around the table and eating and eating! Also, I LOVE the leftovers. But I also love the way the whole month is kind of a lead-up. The calendar turns to November 1 and suddenly the holidays are upon us – but wait, we have a whole month to prepare. Big sigh of relief!
Of course the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving meal is the side dishes. My family usually cooks at least 2 turkeys and sometime 3. The turkeys all get cooked outside (or in the garage if it’s raining) in a vertical roaster. This leaves the kitchen free for the battle of the sides (as I like to think of it.) Just about every member of the family feels Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a particular side. For me, it’s sweet potato soufflé, a dish my father always made. For my sister-in-law, it’s bread stuffing. My one son must have the mashed potatoes of our family friend Armand. The other son must have pumpkin pie (and a lot of it!) And so on!
How do I pair wine with all these many flavors? It’s actually not that hard. I always have both white and red wine on the table (and bubbles to start!) For white, Riesling is a crowd pleaser and goes great with those dishes that have some sweetness, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce for example. This year, I will be bringing along a couple of bottles of our brand new Grüner Veltliner, which is a little less fruity than our Riesling but has a wonderful honeyed quality. For red, I usually open an aged Cabernet Sauvignon. The aggressive tannins in a young Cabernet Sauvignon are what make the wine difficult to pair with sweeter or more delicate flavors. Because the tannins mellow with age, a 10-15 year old Cabernet is much more food flexible than one that is 3-5 year old.
Thanksgiving is, of course, intended to be more than about food (and wine.) The holiday was created to give thanks for the harvest. Here in Sonoma, we have an exceptionally large harvest to give thanks for – the largest crop since I became the steward of Laurel Glen Vineyard in 2011. Although I am of course thankful that our beautiful vineyard successfully produced another crop of ripe, healthy grapes, the timing of such a large harvest is not ideal. The wine industry is suffering through a contraction. Wineries are having trouble selling their wine, which leads them to make less wine or at the very least not more wine. This leaves the many people in Sonoma County who grow grapes to supply wineries with excess grapes. This year, with such a large crop hanging, many grapes went unpicked. I’m sure I speak for many when I say that I will be giving thanks this year that a challenging (and confusing) year is coming to a close.
Fortunately we live in a tight knit community that believes to its core in supporting one another. All of us do what we can to support our community. My small contributions are 1) I almost exclusively buy and drink the wines of my neighbors, 2) I donate to non-profits that support our community – the Redwood Empire Food Bank in particular and 3) I volunteer once a week at Sonoma Meals on Wheels.
If anyone reading this is inspired to help our Sonoma Valley community, I encourage you to do one or both of the following: buy Sonoma Valley wines and donate time or dollars to the Redwood Empire Food Bank, which distributes food to individuals and families in five Bay Area counties, including Sonoma.