Crisp White Wines

Spending an extended two day thanksgiving with C., it's been forty eight hours of drinking the light, crisp white wines he prefers, and feverish note-taking for me, as well as the general feverishness that results from overconsumption of light, crisp white wines.

Lunch yesterday included a few glasses of the bone-dry, refeshingly tart Oxford Landing Sauvignon Blanc 2006 from Southern Australia. Oxford Landing is a big producer that usually gets it right, and this sauvignon was no exception, with a clean finish, citrus notes and a stinging, green quality that they rightfully describe on their website as bringing to mind nettle leaves.

After lunch, we stuck with the South Pacific and finished off a bottle of Whitehaven Sauvignon Blance from Marlborough, NZ he had in the fridge while I started chopping onions for the stuffing. With its grassy, slate nose, and bouquet of anjou pear, clementines and candied ginger, and pleasant mouthfeel, this was a more sophisticated antipodal sibling to the Oxford Landing.

As chopping continued, we opend the Domiliano, Langhe Arneis, Cantine di La Morra I'd bought to accompany our Thanksgiving dinner preparations. This was a delightful sipping wine, yellow straw in color, with a champagne-like-crispness and flavors of fresh grated ginger, green apples and fresh lemons that finished as cleanly as the first wine of the day, but with richer mouthfeel.

Thanksgiving festivities began anew this afternoon, with toasting glasses of Gruet Blancs des Noirs to start off a day of cooking and feasting on the right note. Gruet's sparklers, from the New Mexican town of Truth or Consequence, and the family behind Gruet et fils, constitute perhaps the dirtiest industry secret out there. With its "aggresive mousse (in the words of the winemaker), toasty mouthfeel and assertive fruit and acid, this sparkler would dazzle at twice the price. Notes of cloves, asian pear and ripe peaches only add to the sophisticated layering of depth and flavor in this wine.

Then it was time for something a little more fruit driven and off dry, the always reliable Nino Franco Prosecco. While the nose was mineral overlayed with baking spices, the palate brought to mind clove and molasses cookies, chopped hazelnuts and candied lemons.

We followed this up with Huber's "Hugo" Gruner Veltliner 2006, a simple crisp effort with a locker-room aroma, and a palate of lime, coconut, allspice and dill. Far more interesting was the Can Feixes Penedès Blanc Selecció, a blend of Parellada, Macabeo and Chardonnay, which displayed a focused citric quality, a palate of Anjou pear and wildflower honey, as well as a slight mousse.

Wine authorities often suggest an off-dry white with turkey and its traditional accompaniments, and the L'Ecole No. 41 Semillon 2006 came out during the meal. Like the Can Feixes, this wine tasted of nuts and spices, but with a lanolin creaminess, and bouquet of kiwi, papaya and honeysuckle. My father used to make a condiment for strawberries with sour cream and a swirl of brown sugar, and this wine reminded me of that, but with a dice of walnuts.

After dinner, the Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, NZ 2007 dazzled, washing away the rich flavors of gravy, tater tot casserole and semillon with it's sweet basil nose and bouquet of lime, anise, eucalyptus and ginger. At this point, a sturdier wine drinker might have continued, but it was time for lemonade and soda water for me, and a late supper of veggie burgers and a single glass of Gruner much later in the day.