November 15, 2023
James Brock
“Holiday Wines Perfect For Thanksgiving, Christmas and Any Other Special Meal With Family and Friends
Reds, Whites and Sparkling Picks That Belong On Your Table”
The end of 2023 is nigh, and that means a number of great happenings will unfold before the calendar turns to a new cycle of days and nights. Celebrations, intimate dinners, raucous feasts, office parties and everything in between. All designed to offer thanks and recognize relationships, journeys, love and friendship. We gather with those we love (and others), sit around tables full of food and drink, and mark the end of a year spent well while looking forward to a new set of opportunities to grow and learn and love.
How will I do all of the above (and more) this year? I’ll assemble some wines that have given me pleasure in the past 11 months or so, assign them to specific parties and events, and enjoy the season of celebrations. Each of the holiday wines you’ll read about here deserves a place at your special parties and dinners.
I am restricting myself to seven selections, space and time being the constraints they are. Are these the best wines I tasted this year? Not necessarily. But what follows are seven bottles that I’d love to receive as gifts and would give with joy. Serve them with pleasure and in the spirit of the season.
Thanksgiving kicks off my holiday festivity appointments, and it is — has been for a long time — my favorite red-letter day of the winter season. Memories of my mother’s crescent rolls (which she will make this year while visiting my partner and me in California), pumpkin and pecan pies, my grandmother’s cornbread dressing and sweet potato casserole and Divinity – along with new additions to the menu that I’ve added over the years (a Southwestern dressing I first encountered in Clemson, South Carolina, one bright and sunny Thanksgiving day, Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish, and other dishes) transport me back to tables in Savannah and Germany and Paris and New Hampshire or wherever I was when the fourth Thursday of November came. And the holiday wines. . .
Wine, of course, should be on the table and sideboard during the holidays. This year I’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving in a house near the Pacific about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. We will feast on a Greenberg smoked turkey, and we’ll serve those crescent rolls, butternut squash and mushroom Wellington, rice pulao and saag paneer, a few pies, and. . . to be determined.