Turkey and Burgundy!

The Holiday Season is here! It is time to stuff yourself silly on Thanksgiving, fight your way through Black Friday deals, and then decorate the house with infuriating strings of lights, bundles of pine needles that somehow hide in your house year round, candles, stars, or other holiday symbols that will get broken if you have pets or children. Ah the holidays! First things first, let's answer the most pressing question of all. What wine(s) should you drink on Thanksgiving? There are a lot of strategies for pairing wine with turkey and other items traditionally found on the Thanksgiving table. Those of you who know me may have guessed that there is French wine on the table at my house. For me it has always been a pretty simple strategy, white Burgundy to start (usually with hors d'oeuvres) and then red Burgundy when the turkey is served. This strategy has served me well for years. The only downside is Burgundy can be expensive, and it can be difficult to navigate this complicated region without breaking the bank. Let me suggest an alternate strategy. Find a value Burgundy! As you may have guessed, I have just the wine you have been waiting for.

Let me introduce you to 2015 Cave de Lugny Mâcon-Villages. This white wine is from Mâcon, one of the southernmost appellations in the Burgundy wine region (refer to the poorly drawn, likely inaccurate and probably misspelled map to the left). Like most white Burgundies, this Mâconnais wine is made from Chardonnay grapes. Chardonnays coming out of Burgundy tend to be different in style compared with New World Chardonnay. The structure and feel of the wine is different, and they often possess one of my favorite (if not slightly vague) wine attributes. Not muscular tannins, good guess, but no. I am talking about minerality. Do I mean it tastes like chalk, slate, rocks, a vitamin tablet? Who knows! Whatever it means, these wines have it. In the past, Mâconnais wines have often not garnered the same reverence and respect afforded to its relatives from other parts of Burgundy. However, I think this trend may be changing. Either way, wines from Mâcon often have a friendlier price tag and are well worth your time. Our wine today is a great example of that.

Let's dive into our wine. It has a wonderful citrus smell that hits your nose immediately. Underlying the citrus is a fresh pineapple scent. It smells delicious! This is a smooth, well balanced wine with mild acidity. There is a crisp citrus taste at first, leading into a gloriously vague minerality (the term is vague, not the taste. You can taste the vagueness pretty clearly). It finishes with soft, creamy goodness. For around $10 this is an amazing value. It does not have any one overpowering flavor, like oak, which would make it a great option for your Thanksgiving table.

Holidays aside, this is a great buy and I highly recommend it!

I would love to hear from you all. What wines are you drinking over the holidays?

Happy Thanksgiving!