Monday night's meeting of the Fayetteville Wine Society was a real bargain--$26.04 (including tax and gratuities) for a slightly scaled-down Thanksgiving dinner with six possible wine pairings. The meal consisted of popovers with cranberry jam, turkey, herbed dressing or stuffing, pureed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and pecan pie.
First wine was the
2005 CASTELLO BANFI CENTINE ROSE'
A true rosy shade with light berry fragrance. Short skin contact (72 hours only) Made from Sangiovese grape. Leggy on the glass. Nice as an aperitif. Light bodied but pleasant. Also an okay match to the turkey or green bean casserole.
2006 MCMANIS FAMILY VINEYARD VIOGNIER
Big nose. I thought it would go well with the sweet potato but the wine aroma and flavors became muddled after taking a few bites of the sweet potato. Better on its own as a pleasing sipper. I may buy a bottle. The price for FWS members up until the next meeting in early December is less than $11 a bottle. Good QPR.
2005 SPY VALLEY GEWURZTRAMINER, MARLBOROUGH, WAIRAU VALLEY, NEW ZEALAND
Pale color but not as pale as the Viognier. Nice spicy Gewurz that went particularly well with the stuffing and quite well with the turkey. Might also have been okay with pumpkin pie but not the best match for the pecan pie we had. Nice wine but I prefer the ones from Alsace. Did buy a bottle of Gewurz from Hook and Ladder in Sonoma and may try it out as one of my Thanksgiving wines this year. The Spy Valley was one of the spicier Gewurztraminers I've had in quite some time.
2002 DOMAINE MICHEL GROS BOURGOGNE ROUGE (FRANCE)
Medium garnet color. Good nose. Nice with the turkey. Not very full bodied; more delicate. From Vosne Romanee area. More floral than fruity. Was a disppointment to some at my table who may be used to drinking 1er Cru Burgundies and such but I liked this and found it worthy of consideration for purchase. I don't have the price list with me but think it was under $30, maybe even under $20.
2003 PRODUTTORI DEL BARBARESCO BARBARESCO DOGC, (ITALY)
Decanted for one hour--should have been at least two hours but the wine arrived late.
Produced by a cooperative from Nebbiolo grape. Barolo receives four years aging in wood by regulation and Barbaresco receives three years aging in wood. Both are from the Piedmont area of Italy and the Nebbiolio grape. This wine definitely had a high pucker factor. Sommeliers said that Barbaresco is associated with cherry, rose petal, earth and is strong in both acidity and tannins. I saved a bite of turkey to try with the Barberesco but found it a little too tannic at present. It dominated the turkey. The rose', red Burgundy and Gewurztraminer all went better with the turkey (Riesling and Gamay such as a Beaujolais Cru are other choices.)
With the pecan pie we had a
GOULD-CAMPBELL 10-YEAR TAWNY PORT. (I have sampled this before.) It was a very good match to the pie both being a bit on the sweet and syrupy side. Light amber color. I got prune and fig on the nose and palate. Some caramel and nut flavor which also matched the pecan pie. Yummy combination.
Wines I will consider buying--the McManis Viognier, the Michel Gros Bourgogne Rouge and the Gould-Campbell Tawny Port.