Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year. I love getting to meet up with a bunch of family that I rarely get to see and eat delicious food!
Before the actual holiday of Thanksgiving, my friends and I planned a big “Friendsgiving” dinner where we all cooked different parts of the meal and came together for a potluck-type Thanksgiving dinner! Of course, we couldn’t forget the wine! I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try different dishes with different wines and create a dinner blog out of it!
My favorite part of Thanksgiving is always the appetizers….is that weird? I love spinach dip, it’s one of my favorites. I also love any kind of cheese and crackers, I LOVE deviled eggs, and so on. These were all appetizers that my friends and I put together for the night, so I knew I wanted to spotlight one of those for a wine pairing. For the main food, I love stuffing, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese and rolls. All carbs!!! Fun fact: I’m a vegetarian! So I don’t even eat the turkey or ham or whatever meats there are! As for dessert, I’m a huuuuge pumpkin pie gal, so that was definitely what I wanted to taste with a wine.
The three foods I decided to focus on with my three wines were: spinach and artichoke dip, cheesy potato casserole (YUM), and pumpkin pie.
The three wines I paired with my three foods were: Relax Riesling, Big Ass Zin and Menage a Trois Pinot Noir.
(hover over photos to see caption, click to enlarge)
So the first food I ate was the spinach and artichoke dip because it was one of the appetizers. I decided to pair the Riesling with the spinach dip because I wanted to start out with something that would be easy to sip on. This Riesling was a fan favorite among my friends, probably because it’s so fruity and crisp. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was super sweet, but it definitely tasted semi-sweet. This washed down the spinach and artichoke dip really nicely. Spinach dip is really creamy, so the sweetness from the wine cut the creaminess. This Riesling is from the country of Germany and the region of Mosel. It retails for about $8. Overall, I really enjoyed this bottle and I will be buying it again.
Once it was time to start eating our main meal, I switched over to the Menage a Trois Pinot Noir to focus on. I chose to spotlight the cheesy potatoes because they were my favorite part of the meal. My friend Alex made them and they were absolutely amazing. The Pinot was juicy and velvety. It was much richer than I expected. It tasted slightly oaky and had a good amount of tannins. The cheesy potatoes had sour cream in them, so they were slightly tangy. I think a better wine to pair with this would have been something lighter and sweeter, sort of like the Riesling. I really liked the way they tasted together, but I think there could have been something better. From California, this bottle is only about $10! I highly recommend!
Finally, it was dessert time. At this point, I was stuffed to the absolute brim. I only took a few bites because I was so full I thought I was going to explode. It was time to have a glass of my third wine, Big Ass Zin. I was really intrigued by this bottle because on the back it says “it’s not for everyone”, so I was hoping I would be one of the ones who did like it. Well, I didn’t. It smelled sooo weird, almost like chemicals or like it had gone bad. It tasted bitter and just plain gross. I would not recommend this wine to anyone, frankly. I was trying to enjoy my pumpkin pie but this wine ruined it, so I only took a few sips before I poured my glass down the drain! Is that harsh? It’s from Sonoma County in California and costs about $15, which is more than it should cost.
I had so much fun reviewing these three wines with my Friendsgiving dinner! It was a last minute decision to do a dinner and wine pairing blog with this meal and I am so glad I did. I got a wide variety of food with all of my wines and got to explore a lot of new combinations and flavors.
Until next wine time!
Darcy's Wine Time 