The low-alcohol wine to serve every Thanksgiving guest
Satisfying the palates of both wine novices and wine lovers, especially with Thanksgiving's food treats, can be a challenge.
Barton & Guestier Vouvray “Les Petites Parcelles”
Loire Valley, France
$13.59
11.5% alcohol
PLCB Item #5525
Sale price through Dec. 1; regularly $15.59
Shopping for wines to serve with Thanksgiving dinners can pose unique challenges for those who plan to host.
First, the possibilities for red wines are decidedly limited, since the star of the show, the turkey, is about as mild a white meat as one can imagine. Second, the dominant flavors on the harvest table are far sweeter than those found in your average meal. Not only do we slather that turkey with sweet-tart cranberry sauce, but we put a sugary glaze on everything from the ham to the carrots.
Finally, a good host doesn’t just select a wine that will taste good with the food. They also consider the tastes of their guests. At Thanksgiving, this tends to include a wide range of people who are not frequent wine drinkers, from the great aunts who rarely drink to the nieces and nephews in college who do, but may not yet have acquired the taste for drier styles.
For those looking for one wine to solve all three of these problems in one fell swoop, it’s hard to do much better than a French Vouvray like this one. It’s a white wine whose vivid flavors of orchard-fresh apples won’t disappoint in the pre-meal tippling period, but also won’t overwhelm your turkey dinner.
The wine is low in alcohol and lightly sweet, making it as friendly as possible to infrequent wine drinkers and avoiding the unpleasantly sour clash that can result when traditional dry wines are confronted by sugary foods. Best of all, the chenin blanc-based wines of Vouvray in northern France are almost always brilliantly balanced, with plenty of snappy acidity to offset their delicate sweetness.
Where many other lightly sweet white wines can be disappointing for wine drinkers with drier tastes, the brisk tang of Vouvray and its bracingly balanced finish on the palate can keep wine-loving hosts as happy as their wine-novice guests.
Also available at:
Joe Canal’s in Lawrenceville, $13.99
Wine Warehouse in Clementon, $13.99
blackwood.winewarehousenj.com/
Roger Wilco Beer, Wine & Spirits in Pennsauken, $14.98