Canadian Wine for Our American Holidays

Every year for the past 16 years, Julie and I have hosted a “Sunday Before Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner.” Billed as a pre-Thanksgiving event for our friends who have become our extended family, the event has grown with the square footage of the house and the capacity of the kitchen. From a relatively modest dozen-or-so guests at the inaugural event in 1999, we had 40 guests this year, a near capacity crowd.

The menu is steeped in holiday tradition, with a little variation around the edges, and wonderful wine. It has always been a protein-and-dessert-fest, featuring a very large, traditionally-oven-roasted turkey with a sage/bread stuffing and an oyster stuffing, a smoked turkey with wild rice/almond dressing, a phalanx of smoked ducks prepared with a Cajun-inspired spice rub, some traditional sides, and Julie’s dessert table with a variety of pies, cakes and other pastries, including what I am confident is the best pumpkin pie made anywhere!

In the early days, there was also some additional “mystery” meat that varied from year to year, like citrus and smoke Cornish hens, smoked goose and lamb. Several years ago we served my boneless rolled smoked lamb shoulder, heavily crusted with cracked black pepper, kosher salt and cumin, and then packed in dark brown sugar before spending 12 to 18 hours on the smoker.

I tried to replace the lamb the following year, but we faced a bit of an uprising from the guests resulting in the lamb becoming a permanent part of the pre-Thanksgiving menu.

Wine Pairing for the Thanksgiving and Holiday Feasts

The first thing to consider when selecting a wine for Thanksgiving and similar holiday meals is that the traditional meal has a lot of different flavors and textures. When you add smoke, spice and red meat to a table that already has fats and gravies, heavy, palate-coating starches and sweet, sour and salty components, the wine has to be versatile above all else. That is why I previously recommended Pinot Noir for the Thanksgiving table.

Pinot Noir is not your only choice. If you look at the wine magazines, or follow a lot of wine-related social media sites around the holidays, you will likely see recommendations for a wide variety of wines to be served with lavish holiday meals. Some of those recommendations may be more about marketing a particular wine than about creating a great pairing. Because there is so much happening on the holiday table, many wines will go well with some parts of the meal. But vino-versatility will give your guests the most enjoyable overall dining experience.

And still, I would never say that Pinot Noir is your only choice. Shelley Boettcher, writing for the Calgary Herald, makes the point that turkey is a pretty simple pairing with most white wines, but she recommends a particular Pinot Gris that has enough fruit and acid to brighten the entire holiday table.

I also like Riesling which can bring much of that same versatility. The Riesling grape is very high in acid which is important. Gravy will often contain much of what fat was in the bird as it renders into the pan juices, and the potato preparations, be they mashed or served au gratin, often have a lot of palate-coating butter, cream or cheese. Some Riesling is made in a drier, more austere style than others that allow the acid to come screaming to the forefront. While that is my personal taste in Riesling, some are made with more residual sugar (RS), to tame and balance the acid. A very mildly sweet Riesling, with four or five grams per liter (g/L) of RS would likely be a better holiday choice to match the subtle sweetness that is often found in these meals with their sweet/sour cranberry sauces and chutneys and sweet potato dishes.

Residual sugar is not one of the things you will necessarily find on a wine label. It is not required by law to be listed, but many wine purveyors will know if a Riesling is sweet, a little sweet, or bone dry.

Finding the 2011 Foxtrot Pinot Noir in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley

I will be writing a more extensive piece on our trip and the variety of wines to be found in the Okanagan Valley later in the winter as British Columbia has almost 400 licensed wineries, with nearly 150 in the Okanagan Valley. Several months ago, Julie and I spent three days tasting in the “OK Valley,” and there are three things I learned. First, three days is not enough to fully explore the incredible wine options available in the Valley. Second, the Okanagan Valley is producing wines that are as good and as interesting as any I have tasted from any other region of the world. And third, I discovered the particular Pinot Noir for sharing with our friends and family at our 2015 Sunday Before Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner.

Foxtrot Vineyards is a small, family-owned winery on the Naramata Bench, about 50 miles north of the U.S. border in the Okanagan Valley. Up and down the Valley geologic formations jut out, looking like benches, inspiring the name for these well-planted plateaus in the hills rising from the lake. Foxtrot Vineyards was founded by the Allander family in 2002, producing their first vintage in 2004, which consisted of fewer than 400 cases of Pinot Noir.

Since those early days, Foxtrot has planted a couple thousand additional vines and are sourcing some fruit from a neighboring vineyard with a slightly higher elevation.

They are now making a Rosé, a Chardonnay and two labels of Pinot Noir, one from the Henricsson Vineyard, and the wine we served for Thanksgiving from their own Foxtrot Vineyard.

The Judgment

The first thing I would say about the wine is that it is still very young, and it has the structure to age for another five to seven years at least. But it is also drinking absolutely beautifully right now.

The 2011 Foxtrot Vineyard Pinot Noir is what the wine geeks would call fairly heavily extracted.  It is opaque and deep red with just the slightest orange hue and no rim variation, also speaking to the level of extraction, that is, the amount of color, flavor, tannins and other compounds that are taken from the grapes. The extraction gave this wine a heavier body which helped it stand up to the heavy textures of the Thanksgiving table.

On the nose it was slightly earthy with scents of dark cherry and red plum, and it was also a little peppery which I liked in particular with my traditional bread/sage stuffing in which I include a fairly good amount of coarsely cracked black pepper. On the palate, the fruits were a little more tart than on the nose as the strong acid backbone of the wine comes through, so it tastes of bright red cherry and raspberry, along with hints of mushroom and some fall spices like allspice. There is also a cola character on the palate that I found in many of the Pinot Noirs I tasted from the OK Valley.

The alcohol is 13.7 percent, so the wine was not hot and did not clash with the food. The tannins are apparent, but soft and pretty, which kept them from clashing with the smokiness of some of the meats. The finish was medium to long, allowing the diner to savor the wine as he or she took the next bite of food.

I had considered the 2012 Henricsson Vineyard from Foxtrot, but that wine has a little less of the fruit and depth at the front end, making it a wonderful wine for many occasions, but I was concerned that it would be overpowered by the foods on the holiday table. The 2011 Foxtrot Vineyards Pinot Noir is an extraordinarily well made, beautifully balanced wine that had enough body, enough fruit on the front and sufficient acid to complement the various textures and flavors of Thanksgiving dinner.

These are small production, some call them Canadian cult, wines, but you can order them in the United States through VIP Wines. And having just checked the website, the price of the 2011 Foxtrot Vineyards Pinot Noir has dropped to just under $50 per bottle. It is not what people think of as an everyday wine, but I highly recommend it, especially if you are preparing a fine meal.