How Thanksgiving sides can inspire your wine pairing

Although we all talk turkey at Thanksgiving, in fact it’s the sides that tend to steal the show.

Finding a wine that can cope with them all is never easy but you may just find your favourite side or dressing can inspire your choice.

Sweet sides

Sweet potatoes with their maple syrup glaze or a marshmallow topped casserole like this one are likely to be the sweetest element of the meal - and a tricky one to match with wine.

Given the savoury elements of the meal a sweet wine is probably overkill for most but try a refreshing spätlése or other medium-dry riesling or a rich chardonnay.

Grenache is a grape with a lot of natural sweetness if you want to serve a red wine or, if you have a sweet tooth, go for one of the new wave of sweeter reds like Apothic.

Corn is another sweet-tasting vegetable that goes particularly well with chardonnay or try a rich young viognier like Laurent Miquel’s Verité from Languedoc in southern France

Creamy sides

Lots of Thanksgiving sides have creamy sauces which should again incline you towards chardonnay - a grape variety that simply loves cream. If you’re planning an oyster casserole, Chablis would be a great pairing.

Fruity sides

There’s usually a cranberry relish somewhere in the equation, sometimes with a hint of orange - so if that’s your favourite Thanksgiving flavour choose an equally bright fruity red.

A young zinfandel or merlot, a really fruity pinot noir or even what the Australians often drink with their Christmas dinner, a sparkling shiraz

Green sides

Maybe we’re becoming more health conscious but green vegetables such as green beans, collard greens, sprouts and kale seem to play a bigger role in the Thanksgiving feast these days. (OK, sometimes with cream!)

There are two grapes that have a touch of green about them themselves - carmenère from Chile and cabernet franc - even cabernet sauvignon can pick up on those dark leafy flavours.

Savoury sides

If you’ve a taste for the more savoury aspects of the Thanksgiving feast like the sausage stuffing or dressing think of pouring syrah or shiraz, maybe combined with grenache and mourvèdre as it is in the Rhône and southern France (in Chateauneuf-du-Pape for example). If there’s a mushroom element that’s another reason to reach for the pinot noir.

There are of course huge variations in sides as this marvellous feature from the New York Times, The United States of Thanksgiving, shows so do adapt these suggestions to your local specialities - maybe even picking a local wine, beer or cider if you have a producer near you.

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8 foods you might be surprised to find pair brilliantly with sake

If you drink sake already you probably have your favourite pairings - sashimi, sushi, and yakitori among them -but it goes with more than just Japanese food albeit dishes that may be prepared with Japanese techniques or seasonings

What makes sake unique? As I discovered on a recent trip with the Akashi-based brewery Akashi Tai it’s low in acidity, but relatively high in alcohol which enables it to partner foods as intensely flavoured as grilled meat. There’s often a touch of sweetness too that works well with other Asian dishes and sweet flavoured root veg and, of course, dishes that are rich in umami.

Obviously it's going to depend on the type of sake and the temperature at which you serve it but since sake is complicated enough for the novice I'm not going to be too prescriptive about the pairings just give you the odd nudge where I think it would be helpful.

Just find a decent sake - serve it cool rather than warm - and give it a try!

Steak
Especially with soy or miso and garlic chips (rather than with a red wine sauce, say) as you can see from this recent post . just look for one with a slightly higher alcohol content and lower polishing ratio  

Salad 
Particularly with a creamy dressing or parmesan as in a caesar salad. Sparkling sake would be delicious with a creamy burrata

Peanut-based dressings
i.e sauces and dips like gado gado and satay sauces especially if they have a touch of sesame too

Root veg
like carrots, celeriac, parsnips and sweet potato particularly when roasted which brings out their natural sweetness. (It works with a root vegetable soup too.

Other sweet veg
Such as butternut squash and pumpkin. Try a butternut squash risotto.

Pasta
Maybe that’s not so surprising as pasta is basically noodles by another name and many sauces contain ingredients that are sake-friendly but it still might not be the first bottle you reach for. I probably wouldn’t with most tomato based sauces but a daiginjo sake would be great with with a seafood pasta such as spaghetti vongole

Also any pasta sauce that is umami (deeply savoury). With mushrooms, for instance, or Nigella’s famous Marmite spaghetti.

Or with this spaghetti dish with kosho and roasted parmesan rind

Fried chicken 
I know I know, there are so many drinks that work with fried chicken - beer, champagne and cava among them but sparkling sake should be on your list. Especially when the chicken's served plain or with a creamy sauce though I think a katsu sauce can be a bit overwhelming (better with beer).

Apparently fried chicken is the traditional Christmas Eve food in Japan. I could adopt that habit!

Cheese
There’s a lactic element to sake that mirrors that in cheese especially aged hard cheeses like - parmesan and grano padano but it’s also good with alpine cheeses like Gruyère and Comté

More on this in a couple of weeks after I’ve been to a sake and cheese pairing at La Fromagerie in London for which there still seem to be tickets available if you want to experience the combination for yourself.

Oysters
Not maybe a match you’d have thought of but a remarkably successful one as you can see from this report from sake expert Shirley Booth. (It's the glutamates in both sake and oysters that's the key)

For more conventional sake pairings see some of the archive features on the site.

How the world’s best sakes pair with food 

Why sake pairs so well with food

Top photo by Oksana Mizina at shutterstock.com

The best wine (and other) pairings with oysters

If you’re an oyster fan you’ll probably be aware of the classic matches - Champagne, Chablis and Guinness among them. But there are some good alternatives you may not have thought of.

Which one you choose will obviously depend on which drink you like best - there’s no point in serving Guinness if you hate the stuff - and how the oysters are served. Cooked oysters are generally rather more forgiving than raw ones.

It also makes quite a difference how you season them. Personally I’m in favour of no seasoning at all, letting the wine do the job of a squeeze of lemon but conversely adding lemon can make richer chardonnays and champagnes work better if those are the wines you’d rather drink.

Chablis
There are actually fossilised oyster shells in the soil of the Chablis region so it’s maybe not too fanciful to say that’s why it hits just exactly the right note. I’d pick a recent vintage though rather than a mature one, a premier cru if you’re treating yourself to natives (below), whose season starts on Septmber 1st.

Champagne (and dry sparkling wine)
Here it’s the bubbles that provide the magic, the perfect textural contrast to the smooth velvety texture of the oysters. Ultra dry champagnes like Laurent Perrier Ultra Brut and Drappier Brut Nature that don’t have any dosage (sugar and wine solution) added to them before bottling work best though lighter styles of regular non-vintage Champagne such as Taittinger will do a perfectly good job. Sparkling wine is also the best match by far for deep-fried oysters.

See also this Match of the Week: Oysters and Tasmanian fizz

Muscadet and other crisp, dry whites
The cut price option, clean-as-a-whistle Muscadet acts just like a squeeze of lemon - so don’t add lemon too. The best wines come from the Sèvre-et-Maine region and are labelled ‘sur lie’ (the wine is aged on the lees, the residue of the yeast used to ferment the wine which gives it more flavour).

Also in this category of bone-dry whites comes Picpoul de Pinet from the south of France, Pinot Grigio from Italy and Albariño from Galicia in northern Spain. Sharp Greek whites like Assyrtiko and Roditis are great too.

Sauvignon Blanc
This is what they would drink round Bordeaux, also an oyster-producing area and it works elsewhere too, particularly when oysters are served, as they often are Down Under, with Asian flavours. Again keep the wine young and unoaked. The added zestiness of Sauvignon also helps with strong seasonings like shallot and red wine vinegar or Tabasco.

Chardonnay
Not great, in my view, with raw oysters but very nice with cooked ones, particularly in a creamy sauce or chowder. Choose a lightly oaked, creamy style such as you find in Burgundy, Limoux in southern France or cool climate regions of the New World.

Guinness and other stouts
It’s mainly a colour and texture thing. Black on white (or rather, cream). Smooth layered on smooth. And the saltiness of the oysters counteracts the bitterness of the beer. If you like stout this match is sublime.

Kasteel Cru
This unusual lager made in Alsace from champagne yeasts works much the same way as Champagne. A good bet for those who prefer to drink beer but don’t like stout.

Perrier rondelle
Iced sparkling water (it doesn’t have to be Perrier) with a slice of lemon. Dry, refreshing and doesn’t detract from the delicate flavour of the oysters

Other wines may well work too depending on the seasoning and/or other ingredients you put with them as in this pairing of oysters and dry German riesling.

8 great food pairings for stout and porter

Although there are obviously differences between the two types of beer, dark stouts and porters tend to pair with similar types of food. Here are my top matches ...

Oysters and Guinness is one of the beer world’s classic pairings only bettered in my experience by an oyster rarebit. A creamy chowder with oysters and scallops is also great with a lighter stout

Dark beefy or venison stews like my recipe for braised beef with port and porter. Ox cheeks, ox tail all love stouts and porters

Steak pies such as this steak and stilton pie I enjoyed with a London porter or a hot game pie

Boiled bacon and cabbage - a classic St Patrick’s Day pairing with a smooth dark creamy Irish stout. Mmmm.

American-style barbecue especially BBQd ribs or smoked brisket - one for an American-style porter - even a smoked one if you want to layer on some extra smokey flavour.

Stilton and similar mellow blue cheeses - porter works in the same way as port: a strong dark contrast. Brilliant.

Dark chocolate cakes and desserts - If you don’t have a very sweet tooth and enjoy black coffee with your chocolate you’ll enjoy a porter too. A stronger, sweeter imperial stout is arguably better still. Especially with brownies.

Vanilla ice cream - Imperial stout and ice cream makes a great float. Here’s Garrett Oliver’s Imperial Stout Float from the Brooklyn Brewery

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Food pairings for witbiers

Food pairings for hefeweizen and other German-style wheat beers

5 great matches for IPA

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