Thanksgiving Wines Revisited

I enjoy reading about what everybody had to drink on Thanksgiving more than what they are planning on serving (or selling), so here are my two cents.

The night before Thanksgiving, as family was arriving from California rather late, we stayed up with a bottle of Ridge Vineyards Grenache Lytton Estate 2004 ** This improved by day two -- when I had a little sip of it with an apple and cheese for lunch as we were preparing the main event -- garnering a nicely loamy texture and concentration and dark berry fruits.

For din-din I opened a Domaine Drouhin Cuvee Laurène 2006 *** We had received this as a gift from our friends in Portland who praised it and despite its young age, I couldn't resist. From the website, "Laurène is our flagship wine, and is produced entirely from Pinot Noir grown on the family's estate in the Dundee Hills. All of the fruit is handpicked into small totes, destemmed, fermented with indigenous yeasts, and then placed into barrels (French oak, never more than 20% new)." A deep garnet or very dark red rose color, with red fruits and very mellow pine and wet earth on the nose. My notes trail off at this point, but it was nicely round on the palate without being sweet. And I almost enjoyed this more before dinner than during. Another Oregon wine lending credence to the greatness of the 2006 vintage?

For the white wine lovers we opened a Hanzell Vineyards Chardonnay Sonoma County 2006 **** Let me admit now that I was surprised at the superamazingness of this wine. (Yes, that's one word.) I opened a second bottle last night to confirm just how superawesome it was. There is saying that "young" wine writers can't be objective about the wines they enjoy, and I guess this post proves their point. Screw objectivity in the face of great wine. This Hanzell is without question the single greatest Hanzell wine I have ever tasted. A pale gold color, with a bouquet of fresh wild flowers, taut minerality on the attack, with sumptuous tropical fruit notes in the middle and just un soupçon of black licorice and oak on the finish.

Thirsty much?