Cheers! A guide to wines for the holidays

Perhaps you know the feeling. The family is gathered around the table. The turkey looks magnificent. Everyone looks at you expectantly, and then … and then you panic. What wine goes with turkey?

What should you serve with beef? And champagne is a given for New Year’s Eve, but what kind should you serve? Is there even a difference? • The holidays are stressful enough without suffering wine anxiety. So to make this season go just a little bit smoother, we asked several local wine experts for their help in pairing wines with holiday meals.

THANKSGIVING
Charles Bongner, a restaurant manager and wine director at Café Napoli in Clayton, foresaw a service of four different wines throughout the day, beginning with a couple that were unexpected: a sparkling rosé, followed by a still rosé.

“It’s kind of an early-day event; people start early to mid-afternoon,” he said. And rosé is an afternoon kind of wine.

When guests are first arriving and in a festive spirit, Bongner suggests a Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Rosé ($24).

See previous reviews of rosé wines here.

When Nixon was president, representatives of France came over to sign a treaty. Instead of offering the traditional champagne, the president instead wanted to serve the best American-made sparkling rosé his experts could find.

They said it was Schramsberg, and “to this day, Schramsberg is the only sparkling rosé that is poured in the White House,” Bongner said.

When finger food is brought out — appetizers, or perhaps a meat-and-cheese plate — Bongner suggests a still rosé. The award-winning Lilly Rosé ($24), from Folded Hills, is grown in the Santa Ynez Valley in California, but it has a St. Louis connection: The winery is owned by Adam and Kim Busch.

For the main course, Bongner suggests a Casetta Barbaresco Vigna Magallo ($34). It is an Italian wine that he said is similar to a pinot noir.

“It has a lighter body, not big. It’s going to bust with bright cherry flavors, with a little bit of spice,” he said.

For dessert, he recommends a Mastrojanni Brunello di Montalcino ($60).

“It’s bigger, bolder; it has dark fruit flavors with chocolate, tobacco and spice. It will pair really well with chocolate, pies, a lot of different desserts,” he said.

HANUKKAH
Admittedly, Hanukkah is not a major holiday, and it is not typically celebrated with a feast. The only food that is closely associated with the holiday is latkes — potato pancakes — and they are not particularly wine-friendly.

However, because most American Jews’ heritage is from Eastern Europe, beef brisket has become something of a de facto choice for Hanukkah and, frankly, all Jewish holidays.

So to learn what wines go well with brisket, we turned to Sal Aldana, a wine manager at the Randall’s Wine & Spirits on South Jefferson Avenue.

“For me, brisket conjures up a Southern Rhône (wine), such as Châteauneuf du Pape,” Aldana said. Wines from the Southern Rhône region often have floral notes, he said, but also bring some acid and tannins to cut through the richness of the brisket.

Aldana recommended a Cellier des Princes 2015 Chateauneuf du Pape ($20). “This is a balanced wine, it has a little smokiness, but it also has some blackberry, cherry and plum, which would go well to balance out that fattinesss. It has tobacco, too,” he said.

Moving to the Northern Rhône region, he thought the highly rated Grangier Saint Joseph Côte Granits ($18 to $33) would also pair well with brisket. “It has a nice amount of spice. The mouthfeel is long, and it has an elegant finish. It’s silky,” he said.

From the south of France, Aldana also suggested a red blend called Le Triporteur, which he called “very approachable,” with the flavor of black currant and black cherries.

Best of all is the price: $6.99. “It’s more of an everyday drinking wine,” he said.

CHRISTMAS
Christmas poses a problem, because people serve so many different entrées for the big meal. So Brenda Cook, a wine associate at the Total Wine & More store in Brentwood suggests an all-purpose drink, pinot noir.

“It’s a little bit lighter-bodied, so it goes with more things,” she said. “It tends to go very well with ham, turkey and all the kinds of fixings that go on the table.”

A good one to try is the Samuel Robert Pinot Noir ($16), she said, which comes from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, one of the world’s finest regions for pinot noir.

“It has really great fruit and acidity to it, but enough balance to stand up to food. Black cherry and cinnamon are going to be the two main characteristics that will make it stand up,” she said.

Also, because of the time of year, she suggested a beaujolais nouveau, such as the one made by Jean-Claude Debeaune ($10). These fruity, crowd-pleasing wines are always released on the third Thursday of November, and in such limited amounts that they are quickly snatched up. Stores will probably be sold out by Christmas.

And champagne and sparkling wines go well with everything, Cook said, so she recommended them for Christmas, too.

“One of my personal favorites is going to be the De Margerie, a grand cru brut. It’s incredibly reasonably priced at $39.99,” which is inexpensive for a true champagne, she said.

“It’s very highly rated, highly respected. It definitely has quality written all over the label. … It has biscuity and citrus notes to it.”

NEW YEAR’S EVE
New Year’s Eve, of course, means sparkling wine or champagne — but not always, said certified sommelier Alisha Blackwell-Calvert, the beverage director at Reeds American Table.

Blackwell-Calvert recommended a sparkling wine and a champagne, but also a red blend of Syrah and Malbec for an end-of-year party.

A sparkling wine from Spain, the Naveran 2015 Cava Brut, “will have all the toasty complexities and delicate aromas of bubbles from Champagne, France, without breaking the bank. It is arguably the world’s least expensive vintage-dated wine (at) $18.99,” she wrote in an email.

The moderately priced — $29 — red wine she suggested is Slo Down Wines’ “Sexual Chocolate” 2015 Red Blend, from Napa Valley.

It “is a voluptuous, velvety blend with notes of jammy black cherry, plum and mocha. Enjoy with a hearty steak dinner or sip carelessly while waiting for the New Year’s Eve ball to drop,” she wrote.

For a real celebration, one that costs $93 a bottle, Blackwell-Calvert proposed a Jacquesson “741” Extra-Brut, which is a true champagne.

“Founded in 1789, Jacquesson is one of Champagne’s oldest and most respected estates. ‘741’ is a dry, classic style that showcases all of the best attributes of quality sparkling wine: fresh yellow apple, dried lemon zest, hazelnut and brioche. This is a treat of a wine that would be the perfect partner to caviar and oysters or a memorable midnight toast,” she wrote.

Cheers!

For Thanksgiving

Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Rosé

Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Rosé ($24)