Eric Asimov’s wine column this week is all about, you guessed it, wines for Thanksgiving. He’s got some great advice
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Top of this list: there’s no point worrying about matching “particular bottles to individual flavors.” Given the range of tastes that are probably on your table, you can’t win that battle. Instead, he advises, pick wines that have the versatility to neither overwhelm nor disappear behind your dishes.
And don’t send yourself to the poor house, either. $25 a bottle is plenty, he feels, and he’s comfortable knocking even that number back if you’re entertaining a particularly large group. Yes, some people will judge, but they’re missing the point. Thanksgiving is not about the wine. It’s not even really about the food. It’s about family and friends sharing one of the great holiday traditions.
The wine suggestions are solid and interesting, though I’m not sure what to make of one taster’s thought that, “You want whites that drink like reds, and reds that drink like whites.”
And if you’re not serving a full lunch like we (inexplicably) do in our house, or starting off with latkes because of the Channukah/Thanksgiving overlap, they also offer a nice make-ahead nibble to keep everyone interested and entertained until the main event.
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