Thanksgiving, the day on which we honor food, drink and one another, is nigh.
This year, I asked a few winemakers to share their holiday food traditions and offer a few pairing suggestions.
Grenache and pinot noir typically pair quite well with turkey and various sides, as do white wines such as sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc or viognier.
I asked the winemakers to describe for me the side dish that has become part of their Thanksgiving tradition, and share what wines they would pair with the food — be it theirs or another wine.
Lompoc residents Sashi Moorman and Melissa Sorongon are co-owners with Peter and Amy Pastan of Piedrasassi Wines and New Vineland Bread in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto. The two couples, longtime friends and chefs, live and breathe good food and wine.
The culinary skills of Peter Pastan and Moorman have been showcased in several food publications over the years, and the December issue of Food & Wine features two entrees from Moorman and his sister, Akiko Moorman, now a restaurant consultant in Chicago.
Moorman makes Piedrasassi wines, and is consulting winemaker for several other wineries, among them Stolpman Vineyards, Pence Ranch Wines, Sandhi Wines and Domaine de la Côte, which he produces with Raj Parr of Sandhi.
Moorman and Sorongon have a young daughter, Juliet, who already knows her way around the family kitchen and likes to help with the prep.
Sorongon described her family’s Thanksgiving:
“We always start with Champagne (and sparkling apple juice for the kids in those plastic wine glasses).”
Come dinner, “we often have some Ridge Vineyards Geyserville (vineyard) or Monte Bello (in the Santa Cruz Mountains) on the table with the turkey — Ridge is the quintessential classic American winery, and including it on the table has been a family tradition since Sashi and I spent our first Thanksgiving together 20 years ago in New York,” she said.
“The Geyserville particularly is an important Thanksgiving ritual for us, since zinfandel is such an American wine, and Sashi wrote his senior thesis on zinfandel in California.”
As far as a side dish, Sorongon sticks with tradition: “The cranberry sauce recipe from Julia Child’s “The Way to Cook” is another tradition since that Thanksgiving in 1994,” she said.
“It’s a great recipe and we make it the day before. We get our kid to help out with juicing the lemons and oranges.”
The wheat for their New Vineland bread is grown, harvested and milled locally, and the couples relish the importance of family farms, Sorongon noted.
“We also love having Lompoc yellow beans, which you can get from Lompoc Valley Seed and Milling. We just serve them very simply, cooked with mirepoix and a bit of pancetta.
“They are Sashi’s favorite beans from Santa Barbara County, and the dish represents our farmer neighbors and the bounty of the land around us.”
From out in Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara came word from Bradley Long, the new winemaker at Grassini Family Vineyards.
Long, according to winery manager Katie Grassini, hails from “the foodie capital of the South — New Orleans.”
Sounds to me as if Long will head home for the holiday, where he said he’ll serve the 2013 Happy Canyon Sauvignon Blanc and 2011 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, both staples from Grassini Family Vineyards.
While I suggested “thinking beyond the stuffing” when it comes to side dishes, Long begged indulgence.
“I know you said to think beyond the stuffing, but being from New Orleans I cannot think past my grandmother’s oyster stuffing. I look forward to it all year, and cannot wait to have it with the Grassini Sauvignon Blanc,” he said.
“Also, it would not be Thanksgiving in New Orleans without my mother’s dirty rice and yeast rolls.”
Wherever you find yourself this Thanksgiving, enjoy the time with family and friends, and good wine and food.
— Laurie Jervis blogs about wine at www.centralcoastwinepress.com, tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.