Thanksgiving Pinot Noir

In lieu of a "Drink _______ on Thanksgiving" type of post, I'm going to suggest a few wines that you, gentle reader, may or may not want to seek out on that last-minute shopping trip. I certainly won't tell you what to drink because we all have different taste preferences. Thanksgiving is usually about gut busting quantities of food crammed down our feeding holes, followed by intensely lethargic periods spent watching Americans beat the crap out of each other on TV, while wearing pads of course. Why add to the stress of preparing a mammoth feast by worrying about which wine to pair with what food?

For this post, I'll highlight some pinot noir's that are easy to find and quite good, as well as being reasonably priced. First though, my view on why pinot noir is a nice pairing with turkey and the assorted side dishes we gorge ourselves on each November. With the plethora of dishes weighing down the table, finding a perfect catch-all wine is impossible. For simplicity's, I suggest a high acid wine, specifically a high acid red wine like pinot noir.

There you have it, my suggestion for this year's Thanksgiving. I like to go with red wines because they have a bit of muscle behind them, and when paired with some acid, can still retain a lightness that won't contribute to weighing down your stomach like that pecan pie will. And by the way, I love pie. There are other options, I've seen bloggers recommend everything from Barolo to Zinfandel. If those are more your style, go with them and enjoy!

Here are three pinot noir selections that might interest you, at price points under $40, from three regions around the world that produce consistently excellent wine. They were all sent as samples for me to review. The imported wines are brought in by WJ Deutsch & Sons.

1. 2009 The Crossings Awatere Valley Pinot Noir Marlborough - This Kiwi beauty comes in at under $20 and only 13.0% alcohol by volume. There are notes of cola, baking spices, dried cherry, and cranberry on the nose along with just a hint of white pepper. I tasted ripe red fruit, a hint of cedar, more of that white pepper, and some nicely integrated mushroom flavors. The finish is clean and precise, leaving your palate ready for the next bite of food. I liked the acidity because it kept the wine light and easy to drink, yet the mix of cherry, pepper, and cedar made for some interesting flavors within my glass. I think it would hold up well under the onslaught of turkey and stuffing.

2. 2010 Llai Llai Pinot Noir Bio Bio Valley - Hailing from Chile, we get another low alcohol (13.5%) pinot noir. At a suggested price of $12.99, this was the least expensive of the pinot selections I was sent to taste through. Noticeably riper nose, with aromas of black earth, sun dried tomato, red cherry preserves, oak, and a touch of rhubarb. Compared to the Crossings, the Llai Llai is a softer, fruitier pinot. I tasted raspberry and cherry notes, some oak, a touch of spice, and a nicely integrated tannin. Everything was well integrated, unfortunately the finish was a little too short and abrupt. That said, the pinot still retained a light mouthfeel and I wouldn't minding having it with sweet potatoes or stuffing with bacon.

3. 2009 Sonoma Coast Vineyard Pinot Noir Freestone Hills - Hailing from the Sonoma Coast AVA, this is the most expensive pinot noir in the lineup with a suggested retail of $40. Unfortunately it's also the booziest, coming in at 14.3% abv. Aromatically I think I liked this the most, as it was expressing more intensity across the bouquet than the previous wines.  There was a lovely strawberry jam component that wove through the aromatic palette, along with red licorice, dusty earth, and some cola notes. All together very pleasant though I did get a touch of heat right at the back of my throat. Wild strawberry and raspberry along with black cherry come through on the palate, the acid does a great job of restraining those fruit flavors though, which in turn leads to a nice peppery finish. Some oak does show but it's minimal and overall this wine is very nicely balanced.

These three pinot noirs are all of good quality and fairly priced, I'd be happy with each of them at Thanksgiving. Check your local wine shop or wine-searcher.com for listing of who might carry the labels in your neighborhood. Lastly, remember that Thanksgiving shouldn't be a time of year to stress out about wine pairings. I figure that since you already have enough on your plate (bad pun alert!), the wine should help ease that stress.

One final note for those of you who prefer white wines to red wines, my personal preference is a riesling, like the 2010 Weingut Ackermann or 2010 Cornerstone Napa bottlings. If you're more adventurous, try to find a riesling from the Finger Lakes region of New York or a fine New Zealand label like Mt. Beautiful or True & Daring.

Don't forget sparkling wine either, be it a Prosecco, Champagne, Cava, or Sekt. Open whatever you want and enjoy it with your friends, family, and guests. Yes, that includes your Mother in Law...

Happy Thanksgiving!

These wines were press samples for review purposes.

Beau Carufel

A Quick and Dirty Recap of the 2011 #PinotSmackdown

Where were you last night? If you're a wine lover, specifically a pinot noir lover, you should have been drinking the stuff! Last night, Thursday August 18th, marked the second annual "Pinot Smackdown". This unique event, started by infamous wine bloggers Ed Thralls and Joe Herrig, is a massive online tasting of pinot noir from around the world. The goal, to find a winner among the world's pinot regions, by popular acclaim, instead of having some critic appoint a region as the best in the world. Cause we all know that critics suck, right?

I'll repost the official details right here, so that you can see what you missed. *Evil laugh*
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#PinotSmackdown is an all-day global celebration of the world's most expressive wine grape combined with a knock-down, drag-out cage fight between YOUR FAVORITE Pinot-producing regions!

TIME: 24 hours in order to give everyone time to share a glass when it makes sense in their time zone.

This event is FREE and all you need to participate is wine and Twitter, Facebook or your favorite social channel. Everyone is encouraged to invite wine lovers to your location and make the Twitter stream of #PinotSmackdown tweets visible to attendees. We like to use Tweetdeck, TweetChat.com or Twitterfall.com to display all the tweets with the hashtag "#PinotSmackdown"
Here's the twist!... who makes the best Pinot you've ever tasted? To vote via your tweets simply add another 2-character hashtag after #PinotSmackdown and we'll count the votes so that region gets bragging rights for the night!
Voting region hashtags:
#OR - Oregon
#CA - California
#WA - Washington
#NY - New York
#46 - U.S. The "Other 46," outside of the Big Four
#FR - France
#IT - Italy
#DE - Germany (Deutschland)
#EU - Europe, beyond France, Germany, Italy
#CN - Canada
#NZ - New Zealand
#CH - Chile
#AR - Argentina
#AU - Australia
#SA - South Africa
#WD - World, as in none previously listed
For example, if you are drinking a Pinot from a region in California, simply tag the end of your tweets with: #PinotSmackdown #CA
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Very simple, I agree, but incredibly fun and a great way to get some people together for a night of wine and discussion.

About two weeks before the event, Ed reached out to myself and a handful of other wine bloggers with a trifecta of pinot noir samples from the Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley AVA's. Those were:
2009 Sonoma Coast Vineyards Freestone Hills - $40 SRP
2009 Windsor Sonoma Russian River Valley - $30 SRP
2010 Windsor Vineyards Pinot Noir, Sonoma County - $28 SRP
These were all wines from the Vintage Wine Estates portfolio. As a disclaimer, Ed works for them and they were a huge backer for the Pinot Smackdown.

In addition to those California (specifically, Sonoma County) pinot noirs, I opened a 2007 Kramer Vineyards Cardiac Hill pinot from Oregon to throw some contrasting style into the mix. The Kramers were hosting an event at The Friendly Vine in Forest Grove, Oregon. Apparently (according to Becky Kramer at least), the event was a real hit.

With those four pinot noirs, I was ready to go. While I could have also opened other pinots, including some great stuff from Burgundy and New Zealand, I wanted to keep it somewhat under control. I mean, I didn't want to get absolutely hammered while tasting and tweeting. Drunken tweeting, while fun, can be dangerous.

Here are the tasting notes on the four pinots I sampled last night:

2010 Windsor Vineyards Sonoma County pinot noir: Bright acid but disjointed and unbalanced. Very young and it shows. Needs time to settle down. Ripe, sweet strawberry fights with baking spices and surprisingly thick tannin. Cranberries try to come play but are smacked around and leave in tears. Perhaps a few years in the bottle will settle this wine out, perhaps not. Hardly any finish, just disappears from my palate. Tastes cobbled together, which it was. 14.5% abv.

2009 Windsor Sonoma Russian River valley pinot noir: Soft, ripe, rich, and brimming with the flavors that American oak barrels impart. This is one of those pinots that stand up well on their own due to the sheer ripeness of the fruit. Like a strawberry fruit roll-up. That's how ripe and oaky this Russian River Valley pinot is. Imagine eating vanilla-buttered raspberry/strawberry toast. If you really dig fruiter, softer pinot noir, I bet you'd love this.. 14.5% abv.

2009 Sonoma Coast Vineyards Freestone Hill pinot noir: Here we go, bright acid, restrained berry fruits, and silky tannin. Each of those three elements are in balance, creating a very nice, smooth, light mouthfeel. I liked the wild strawberry tartness mixed with a bit of raspberry puree. Both of those added depth to the mid-palate. A warm, happy baking spice flavor brought a smile to my face. While this pinot did see oak barrel aging via American oak, the effect here is merely to add dimension versus squashing the acid like in the other two California wines. 14.3% abv.

2007 Kramer Vineyards Cardiac Hill Yamhill-Carlton pinot noir: Compared to the first three, this is in another part of the pinot spectrum. Earth and sour cherry show through, supported by fresh cranberry and a bit of peppery spice. Here and there, cigar-box and a hint of plum skin make tiny impressions across the mid-palate. The '07 Kramer Vineyard had a lightness to it that reminded me of a Côte de Beaune. The tannins were nicely integrated and firm enough to give this pinot noir structure and balance. A wholly different expression of the grape but one that's perhaps focused more on terroir and less on using oak and other techniques to create a wine. 12.8% abv.

What was my favorite? I picked the 2009 Freestone Hill from Sonoma Coast Vineyards last night as the "winner". The balance was impressive and no part (flavor, tannin, acid) of this wine felt muted. The winemaker used a deft touch to express the terroir of this particular vineyard. Sure, it's $40 a bottle, but that's right about the price you start to get excellent pinot noir. The reason I preferred this (on August 18, 2011) to the Kramer Cardiac Hill pinot noir was that it spoke to me more last night. It's that simple.

Enough about me, what about the rest of the world, busily tasting and tweeting away to support their favorite region! The winner, by a relative hair, was New Zealand! I was surprised! Last night (due to the time difference) I didn't notice much if any "#NZ" tweets from the "#pinotsmackdown" but apparently when us Yanks were asleep, the Kiwis were tweeting up a storm. Congratulations to them! Now let's get the exchange rate fixed and some more pinot from New Zealand into the USA, I want to taste it! In second place, Oregon, no surprise there. Perhaps the king of domestic pinot noir producing states (sorry, California), I saw a multitude of tweets in support of their pinot noirs. California brought up third place, a respectable showing and only a few votes behind Oregon.

Ed posted a great recap of the 2011 Pinot Smackdown on his blog, go read it and you'll see the amazing reach that this event has. He breaks down the numbers to show how this is a global event and impressions that were generated across all the social media platforms is truly amazing. We gotta give it up to Ed and Joe Herrig for promoting and steering this event along. Nicely done, gentlemen.

The wines featured here were provided free of charge for the Pinot Smackdown tasting event.


Beau Carufel