Home cooks across America are gearing up to roast, smoke, and fry an estimated one-sixth of all the turkeys annually consumed in this country on Thursday. Since for most of them, hosting Thanksgiving dinner is an annual tradition, chances are good they have the bird, the stuffing, and the sweet potatoes down to a habit, if not a science, but for many the single most stressful holiday dinner decision will be this one: “what wine should I serve?”
Today I will tackle white, tomorrow red, since many families will serve both.
The best Thanksgiving white? This may come as a big surprise since it is not usually thought of as a food wine for any cuisine, especially not the heavy and assorted flavors of Thanksgiving, but I am choosing chardonnay. But not just any chardonnay – your bird deserves French wine, specifically the whites of Burgundy, more specifically those from Chablis.
I am recently back from an extensive tour of Burgundy, one of the world’s most famous wine regions, and it helped reinvigorate my respect for the world’s most popular wine grape. If you are used to drinking California chardonnays, or almost any New World chardonnays (Chile, Australia, etc.), you may be shaking your head at my choice, and rightfully so, because these would be a terrible pairing. There are certainly exceptions, some notable, but it is more than fair to say in a rather sweeping generalization that California chardonnays are devoted to a rich, fat, buttery style, with a heavy-handed use of oak barrel aging, resulting in a wine best enjoyed on its own or at cocktail parties, usually deep golden in color. It is famously not a food wine, and its easy drinking, less complex nature has made it America’s favorite bottle.
The chardonnays of Burgundy are much, much different and although these noble whites are made from100% chardonnay grapes, something you may or may not find in American bottles labeled “Chardonnay,” they go by other names based on their region. Just as Champagne, which is a place, gives its name to a wine that in France is highly regulated and may contain only three (or less) specific grapes, so it is with Chablis. When you buy a French wine labeled Chablis, you are always getting a pure chardonnay wine made in Chablis, period. Bear in mind that when you buy either “Champagne” or “Chablis” from outside of France, especially from the US, you are getting anything but – to such an extreme that it would be idiotic to buy such wines at all.
The chardonnays of Chablis are so different from their California cousins you might assume they are a different varietal altogether, and in many ways they taste more similar to the sauvignon blancs of New Zealand than the chardonnays of our country – and the chief reason New Zealand sauvignon blancs have become so successful is that they pair very well with food, especially Asian flavors and spicier cuisine. Chablis has similar characteristics but in a more refined and less aggressively crisp way, which is why they pair so well with the wildly mixed but predominantly non-spicy, white meat, bread and vegetable-based cuisine that is Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, in France there is no Thanksgiving, and Chablis is most famous there as the wine of choice with seafood.
These wines are characteristically flinty or steely with a lot of minerality, a factor of their prized, limestone-rich soil or “terroir,” which is why they are so difficult if not impossible to emulate elsewhere (and why by the acre the most expensive vineyards in Burgundy are by far the most expensive vineyards on earth). They are made almost entirely in steel with little or no oak flavoring or coloring from barrels, with the more expensive, older wines often receiving just a touch of barrel aging, and as a result they are more pale green than yellow in color, very clear, lean and slightly crisp, much drier than the unctuous US version, and the fruit most notably tastes of green apples, rather than rich ripe fruits like melons or strawberries often associated with California wines. They are heavily nuanced and for most consumers, less exciting than the American version by the glass on their own, yet they are much, much better with food.
Chablis is the single region on earth most associated with chardonnay grape, where it is has been grown forever and is generally recognized as the best, and the entire legally designated region is just over 10,000 acres, a pretty small production. Its individual vineyards are designated by the government reflecting their ultimate quality potential, the very highest being Grand Cru, followed by Premier (or 1er) Cru, follow by simply Chablis. Below this is Petit Chablis, but given how little wine is produced and exported to the United States, you are not especially likely to see this lowest classification on the shelf. Surprisingly, Chablis is an excellent value, and while there is no such thing as cheap Chablis, the most expensive are less than their California counterparts, and you can get excellent wines starting at $20. More good news: if you don’t finish it at Thanksgiving it won’t go to waste, since Chablis is also the longest lived of all chardonnays and can sit around for many years, actually improving.
There are many producers big and small, but to simplify your holiday shopping I suggest you look for labels from the Domaine of Drouhin Vaudon, a long established family winery making bottles from many of the very best vineyards. Drouhin Vaudon produces a wide range, including the highest the Grand Cru versions and in fact, there are only seven Grand Cru designated vineyards, and they make wines from five of them. They also make five Premier Crus and a “regular” but still excellent, Chablis. Most are named for specific vineyards. NOTE: I’ve included links to retailers that carry each of the wines below for convenience, but I do not endorse any particular wine shop.
I just had a bottle of the Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 2009, which could have easily remained in my fridge for another decade, but enough weeks had passed since my trip to Burgundy where I could no longer control myself, and we drank it with a meal of shrimp and scallops, and I kept thinking how great it would be with turkey. Les Clos is probably the single most famous vineyard in Chablis, and this wine is the top of the heap, at $75-80 per bottle. By comparison, the Grand Cru reds of Burgundy often run into the hundreds and can top a thousand bucks. Drouhin Vaudon offers a less expensive Grand Cru, Bougros, which might be even better for Thanksgiving, as it is a bit rounder and more full-bodied, even more versatile with food, and around $65. A third Grand Cru I tried, Vaudesir, at the same $65 price, is leaner and best suited to seafood.
The Premier Crus are about half the price, in the high $30s, and still fine wines by any standards. Those widely available in the US include Secher, Montmains, and one blended from several premier cru vineyards, labeled Chablis Premier Cru. All three are excellent wines for the dollar year round, but the latter two would be best suited to Thanksgiving dinner.
Fortunately, I don’t actually have to entertain, but if I did, given economic realities, I personally would most likely be serving the plain old 2009 Chablis from Drouhin Vaudon, which is a classic Chablis, pale and clear and slightly green, characteristically flinty but fuller bodied, and a great food wine – and a great value at around $20. It is the kind of wine you could reliably keep a few bottles of in your fridge, it won’t go bad, and you will have it at the ready anytime you are enjoying a meal of seafood, poultry, or even pork.
Tomorrow, red wines for Thanksgiving.
