Wednesday, November 21, 2012

How to Serve Sparkling Wine on Thanksgiving Day


Sparkling wines are such an easy way to add elegance to your Thanksgiving feast and they bring a beautifully fresh, lively element to all the rich, autumnal flavors. Here are three ways to introduce sparkling wine into your Thanksgiving Day menu.

Cheese Course. A cheese course benefits greatly from a versatile sparkling wine, such as J Vintage Brut — known for its perfect balance of fruit and toast flavors. This course doesn't have to be elaborate to be elegant. The easiest way to pull one together is to choose a few different types of cheese: a fresh cheese like Gioia's burrata, a soft cheese like Cowgirl Creamery's Red Hawk, a semi-hard cheese like Manchego, a hard cheese like Vella Dry Jack, and a veined cheese like Rogue's Smokey Blue. You don't have to have one of each type, but even if you're only serving a few cheeses, it's good to offer a range of textures.

Main. Turkey confit is a popular offering this year so if you're serving a particularly rich main course like this or like this Smoky Paprika-Bacon Roasted Turkey, this Honey-Roasted Turkey with Chestnut Dressing, or this Turkey Roulade with Peach and Sage Gravy, consider serving a sparkling wine with the main course in order to introduce some freshness and counterpoint. Try a citrus inflected sparkling wine like our J CuvĂ©e Brut with notes of lemon zest and Fuji apples. 

Dessert. Thanksgiving pies, cakes, and roulades are especially rich, earthy desserts, which means that once again, bubbles bring a wonderfully light and lively element to this course. We recommend choosing a youthful, vibrant, fresh sparkling wine that has some pear or lime fruit characters as well as some nice almond, toast, or caramel notes such as our J Late Disgorged Vintage Brut

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