What Is A "Holiday Wine"?

It was only a few weeks ago that anyone and everyone connected to Fox Run started getting bombarded with questions regarding what wines pair well with Thanksgiving Dinner.  As you could see in my post on the subject, the broad answer with a meal that diverse and with a main entree so versatile was to drink any wine that wouldn't tire you out (due to too much alcohol, tannin, etc.) and especially to make sure it was a wine you enjoyed (because that is what really matters).  Now as we approach and immerse ourselves in other major celebrations of the season, each of which marries gaiety with some form of excess, the questions of "what wine" are no less important.

To me, the most interesting part of wine pairing questions during the holidays is the larger premise behind the question: that a distinct set of wines exist that are appropriate for the holidays.  Even if we cannot place our finger on what exactly makes a wine a "Holiday Wine," we all seem to have some understanding that it deserves special attention (and capital letters).  Frankly, I'm most interested in what all of you and consumers in general think of when they approach a holiday wine selection - and hope to see some ideas in the comments below.  In the meantime, here are a few attributes that I tend to weigh and juggle for these special wines:

• Pairing Food:  The most obvious factor that might go into designating a wine as a Holiday Wine is that it pairs well with traditional foods of the season.  Thanksgiving brings to mind zinfandels for many who read American wine writers anytime after the 1980s, because it seemed appropriate at one time to serve an American wine with an American holiday and now is rooted like tradition (regardless of suitability to the meal).  For those who have a standing rib roast for Christmas or New Year's, a classic claret-style red might beg for Holiday Wine consideration.
• Pairing Mood:  No less important when it comes to wine pairing, is how the wine seems to pair with the mood of the season.  Excepting its most ardent proponents, most wine drinkers would not readily think of a crisp, dry rosé during the depths of a cold and snowy January.  On the flip side, dark and sticky port wines feel perfect by the fireplace and a sparkling wine is as de rigueur at a New Year's Eve party as the midnight kiss.  Fortunately, sparkling wines are excellent partners for the hors d'oeuvres present at most such gatherings - but regardless of that the mood fits the wine so perfectly that food pairing might be cast aside (see: Zinfandel, Thanksgiving).
• Price:  There is no way around the fact that all consumers, including everyone in the wine industry when they are out shopping, use the price of a bottle as an indicator of the quality within the bottle.  These assumptions may be entirely off base, perhaps the wine just has better marketing or an artificially low supply, but nevertheless they are still made.  And when it comes to the holidays, similar to how everything else is treated from food to spending, excess (high price) is often rewarded as being correct for a Holiday Wine.  This isn't to say that the fun gatherings this time of year do not deserve expensive bottles of wine, but neither does it mean that just because a wine is expensive it should be considered a Holiday Wine.
• Tradition:  Relatively straight forward, I suppose.  If you always have a nice Chianti Classico on Christmas Eve with a big Italian-American feast, that style of wine is always going to be a Holiday Wine for you and yours.  It may even come down to a specific producer or bottle if it has really entrenched itself.  For better or worse, when it comes to this signifier of Holiday Wines I am still in my early 20s and struck hard by wanderlust, so I'm far more prone to experimentation even within the context of tradition.
• Sensory Analysis:  This comes surprisingly far down my list, but I don't think that is inappropriate given how important the first three are in most of our decisions on wine during the holidays.  To some extent, there are simply wines that can call to mind images of the holidays simply by their aromas and flavors.  Whether these be aromas of cloves, cinnamon, red fruit, or anything else that we associate with the holidays, a wine can certainly vault itself into being a Holiday Wine if it suddenly serves as a Proustian portal to holidays (real, imagined, or idealized) gone by.
• Connection:  This word may be as nebulous as terroir is, in that giving a precise definition is as frustratingly difficult.  Instead, by way of example, here is what caused me to think of this entire topic.  While I was in New Zealand I purchased about a case-worth of wine, bottle by bottle, from small producers I was impressed by and wouldn't find elsewhere.  Now when I look at these bottles and contemplate opening them for a meal, I am drawn back to beautiful landscapes and my remarkable experiences traveling through that nation in the spring.  This may not have a direct connection to anything relating to the holidays, but to the extent that it brings me back to these special memories it feels right for the joy and reflection of this season.

So there you have it, a partial listing of categories that help make a wine become a Holiday Wine.  As I said at the beginning, I am more interested in what other people think of when they pick out wines for the holidays.  Every such bottle tends to have as fascinating a story behind it as the person who selects it.

By: Kelby Russell, Winemaking Team

Music of the Day:

• Lower Dens - Twin-Hand Movement; "I Get Nervous":

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Ruminating on Food and Wine

In the absence of Tricia today (she's been swamped with obligations at home and the winery this week; end-of-month bulk-inventory reports are surprisingly complicated), a wanted to add to some of the ideas that Peter brought up on Wednesday.  Bringing up food, wine, and especially the pairing thereof is always a way to get us talking and brainstorming.  With that in mind, here are a few interesting guidelines to wine and food pairings we've discovered at a Fox Run Tasting or on our own:

• Port with Savory Foods.  Unless I am mistaken, we haven't taken the opportunity to really write about our port program here at Fox Run and the deep pride and enjoyment we take in crafting this fortified wine.  For better and for worse, many people instantly associate port with chocolate, desserts, blue cheese, and cigars.  With the exception of the last item in that list, I can certainly vouch that port has a unique place in pairing with each of those items.  Yet whether you're drinking the more jam-like Ruby Port style (younger and bottle aged) or the brown sugar and caramel Tawny Port style (aged in neutral oak for many years), don't overlook these wines when it comes to non-sweet foods!  Never will you want a big heaping glass of a wine this intense, but it can pair beautifully with hearty, earthy, or rich meats and stews.
• Riesling with Pork.  Riesling is one of the best wines to pair with food out there; it's like the Mickey Mantle of the wine world.  To wit, we've been very excited to read about the ever-increasing number of restaurants in New York City and elsewhere catching onto this fact and propelling riesling forward.  You can pair it with non-cream based seafood preparations and watch the wine and food build each other up, or with roast poultry and enjoy its refreshing aspects.  As a foolproof pairing, however, I can think of few pork dishes that would not be fantastic with Riesling.  Maybe I am just a sucker for the historical linkage of riesling and hearty pork dishes with Germany; but everything from pork roast to grilled pork chops to pulled pork and BBQ (seriously!) seems to only get better when Riesling is matched with it.  The only question you need to settle is whether you want a dry, semi-dry, or semi-sweet style to meld or contrast the natural richness of the pork.
• Barrel Aged (Reserve) Chardonnay with Seafood.  Especially if the preparation of the seafood involves cream or butter.  Peter pointed out one instance where this pairing did not work out for us, but the fact it was worth singling out also underscores what a spectacular (and easy) pairing this normally is.  One of the most memorable wine pairings I've ever had at home involved making up some lobster ravioli (from Rochester's fantastic Ravioli Shop) in a simple butter sauce and then opening up our Reserve Chardonnay.  It was only supposed to be an easy, yet festive, meal on Christmas Eve as we were rushing around - but the pairing with that wine turned simple into transcendent.  Butter richness, lemon curd, vanilla, and a whole host of other wonderful aromas and flavors came out to complement the food and vice-versa.

This is a huge subject to tackle, and hopefully we will return to it  again if anyone is interested in more general guidelines for Finger Lakes Wines.  Just remember that there is always an element of surprise to having food and wine together; the point is to have fun.  And if you are pairing your food with a wine from the Finger Lakes, you can be assured that you have a great chance of it pairing nicely.  The style of red and white wine we make around these Lakes is some of the most food-friendly and refreshing that exists, and it is right in your backyard!

By: Kelby Russell, Winemaking Staff

Music of the Day:

• Paul Simon; "Getting Ready For Christmas Day" (new single from an upcoming album):

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Wine and Thanksgiving

My wine recommendations for Thanksgiving Dinner appear at the end.  I know this topic would be more timely next week, but I hope it is more useful this week with time and a weekend yet to make plans and purchases.

It is one of my favorite times of the year.  No, not the completion of vintage and the ecstasy, expectation, and sense of relief that follow it. (Had you asked me two weeks ago the third variable in that series would have been ennui, but as nice as that alliterative flourish would be, I don't roll that way.)  Instead, I am talking about the imminent arrival of Thanksgiving.

For me this brings back memories of the fantastic five-day weekend we received from public school, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, great food, the beginning of the Christmas season, and a trip the weekend before to watch my Harvard Crimson crush the bullies from the inferior institution located somewhere unpleasant in Connecticut.  But for the past few years, and now more than ever before, this time of year is a favorite of mine due to the arrival of the annual "What Wine to Have with Thanksgiving Dinner" articles in publications across this fine nation.

Why does this amuse me so?  It all boils down to a little secret that all of us in the wine industry, especially wine writers, know: there is hardly a wine in this world that does not pair with turkey and Thanksgiving Dinner.  There are two considerations that factor into this reality:

• Turkey pairs well with nearly any light to medium bodied wine.  This isn't a beef or fish situation that clearly calls out for a certain wine to stand-up and/or not overwhelm the food; roast turkey is a flavorful dish that pairs with nearly all interesting white, red, or rosé wines.  With the notable exception of very heavy, jammy, alcoholic, or extracted red wines, you will enjoy nearly any wine you like with turkey.
• Thanksgiving Dinner is too large, too varied, and too complex a meal to ever find the "perfect" wine for.  What goes nicely with the green bean casserole is not likely to match the cranberry sauce.  What pairs with the mashed potatoes will likely be a miss with the sweet potatoes.  

1. One option would be to have a large variety of individual bottles for the evening, but this is onerous and expensive.
2. A second, equally unpalatable, option would be to select wines and then pair them with each dish in the meal.  This would not only be expensive, but is a pot shot at best.  We can have a hard time pairing when we have access to tasting every wine in our tasting room, let alone guessing in the dark.

What's my suggestion?  Pick a wine or two (one white/rosé, one red) that you enjoy and you cannot go wrong!  Preferably these wines would be light to medium bodied (not too heavy or alcoholic) so you do not tire of it or have it tire you out over the course of a long meal, but this is the only other guideline I would offer to "drink what you enjoy."

Despite the fact that wine with Thanksgiving Dinner should not be complicated or intimidating, the way it is usually treated always results in the wine articles I love so much.  It is no offense to the wine writers, who are asked and compelled to provide insight on the issue, that this is the easiest feature they have to write every year.  They know they can pick most any wine and be successful, they just need to put some words on paper and they have earned a handy pay check.

Some wine writers, such as Eric Asimov at the New York Times, go above and beyond and preface their yearly article with this reality; nearly anything will work and their recommendations are more suggestions and insight into their pairing philosophy.  Others continue to print the idea that one should only serve zinfandel from the US because it is an American grape, from a California producer, for American Thanksgiving.  With all due respect; the grape is not American, there are many places other than California that produce wine in America, and high-octane zinfandels are actually in that small group of wines that pair terribly with Thanksgiving Dinner.

With all that being said, and our advice that you pick the wines you enjoy most for your Thanksgiving Dinner, here is what will be on my table:

• '09 Riesling (Semi-Dry):  Beautiful tropical and tree fruit aromas and flavors, with a refreshing combination of sugar and enough acidity to keep you coming back for another sip and more food. Complements rich foods by keeping them from getting cloying, while the slight sugar and fruit flavors provide a nice counterpoint to turkey and vegetables.
• '07 Pinot Noir:  A medium-light bodied Pinot Noir that has developed the earthy and cherry aromas and flavors that we find so enticing.  Refreshing to drink and those flavors are dynamite with Thanksgiving staples, but this wine still has enough grip to keep you interested.

Happy Feasting!

By: Kelby Russell, Winemaking Team

Music of the Day:

• In memoriam of an inspired composer with one of the most transcendent pieces of the 20th century.  
• Henryk Górecki; Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (as performed by Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta):

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Wine and Beer - Fighting to be on the Same Team

Whether we are crushing grapes or making final blending decisions, the thought of how our wines will pair with food is always foremost in our minds.  Simply put, so far as we are concerned, wine and food are meant to go together so that they may complement, contrast, and/or refresh one another.  The fact that we make this so paramount to our winemaking philosophy may come as a surprise to some, and we will be glad to get into how it informs and inspires the decisions we make here in the winery in the future.  Especially as our fantastic new Chef, Jarrod, has hit the ground running, the opportunity for us to pair our wines with dishes will prove quite the muse for our blogging as well.

In the meantime, I had the opportunity to attend a fantastic dinner last night focusing on another classic food-pairing beverage: beer.  The wine world has often joked that it takes a lot of beer to make wine, a fact that is demonstrably true, but is also a backhanded complement to the brewing world we are not so far removed from.  Beer is not just an input that yields wine, it is a beverage that deserves equal space at a fine dining table when the "best match" is being sought for a dish.

Don't believe me?  Try wine and cheese together, a cliché that everyone assumes just works, and if you pay attention to what you are tasting you will realize it often doesn't work at all.  Red wines all seem to taste the same with cheese, white wines are often overwhelmed, and the unique nutty, fruity, earthy, and vegetal flavors of the cheese disappear as well.  While some wines and cheese do pair together spectacularly, that is a bit like winning the lottery twice in a row.  Try a handcrafted beer with cheese, however, and with very few guidelines you will have a transcendent experience.  This is just one example of many that could be mentioned, and should be mentioned now that our local economies have such great brewers popping up.

Last night was another such experience for those who attended the Great Lakes Brewing dinner at the Wegmans in Canandaigua.  Great Lakes are one of the best regional brewers out there and I am a huge fan of Wegmans, so fair warning that I am undoubtedly biased.  Getting to meet Luke Purcell, the brewer down at Great Lakes, only made the experience more enjoyable and intellectually fascinating.  He speaks about balance and moderation in use of hops or oak aging experiments the same way we speak about balance and presence of acid in cool climate wines rather than a race for highest ABV%.

Despite my bias, I will absolutely say that the food prepared by the chefs was fantastic and the beers paired beautifully.  Crispy Pork Belly paired with Conways Irish Ale, Garganeli with Duck and Walnuts paired with Eliot Ness, Roast Leg of Lamb with Cassoulet beans paired with Nosferatu, and Pear Gingerbread Cake paired with Great Lake's infamous Christmas Ale.  All were interesting (albeit filling) pairings that brought out the fall flavors and warmth we all like to call up during storybook waves of nostalgia.

Being employed in a winery, I could not help but wonder what wines might have worked with these dishes or would not have worked at all.  In particular, I would have loved the crisp finish of a riesling to pair with the pork belly to help refresh it from all the fat content.  This is not to say that the pairing there wasn't appropriate, but to say that there is always more than one pairing that will work.  And with microbrewers caring as much about their product, craft, and food as we do; the number of matches is only growing.

By: Kelby, Winemaking Team


Music of the Day:

• Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um; "Better Git In Your Soul":

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