The Best Thanksgiving Dinner Wine

Wednesday, November 27, 2024 is the last day to pick up Thanksgiving pre-order items, and peruse the shop before the big day! This I am excited to lean into my love and knowledge of wine a little bit by offering a tasting of what I consider to be the best Thanksgiving day Wine. Jean Foillard’s “Cot Du Py” is a tremendously good Beaujolais wine. If you are new to wine, or maybe you enjoy wine but haven’t gotten to far into the weeds, let me break this down a bit. This particular wine is French so I will explain in terms of French wines to keep this as narrow in scope as we can.

French Wines are generally identified by where they are made. Other identifiers are also found on the label, but you will rarely ever find the grape varietal on the label. Each region of France is known for the grape varietal that grows the best in that region which means to know what sort of grape, you need to know a bit about the region. Beaujolais is just south of Burgundy and roughly 250 miles south and a little east of Paris. To put it in perspective, Beaujolais is on the same latitude as the northern most part of Oregon, the upper peninsula of Michigan, and Maine.

So what do they grow in Beaujolais? Gamay.

Gamay is purple grape that produces red wine. It is a larger berry with thin skin. It generally ripens earlier in the growing season and produces very fruity wines. Here’s the deal, Beaujolais wines have historically been considered simple, budget wines. Gamay has never been considered a grape that could produce world class wines. So it has typically been consumed young, and without much fussing about. Sentiment has been shifting over the past 10 years or so. Maybe because the price of Burgundy and bordeaux have spiraled out of control. Maybe because people stopped passing it over and putting more time into it. I dont know. But here’s the deal, wines made from single vineyards in the top villages are dynamite. Worthy of attention. The good news is you can still get them for under $40 in many cases. Several are pushing the $50 range but for GREAT wines. So that brings us to Morgon.

Morgon is a village in Beaujolais, considered one of the “CRU” or premium class village designations. Jean Foillard is considered to be one of the great wine makers. His wines are regarded as benchmark wines meaning a wine that others should me modeled after. The Cot du Py is a certified organic vineyard in Morgon with vines ranging in age from 10 to 90 years old. The fruit is fantastic and the subsequent wines are really tremendous. I’m not sure what it is about these wines but they pair really well with Turkey. It may be because they tend to have hints of cranberry. Maybe it is the acidity. Not sure but this wine is a Turkey wine for sure. They hold up over time and continue to evolve which is what makes this tasting very exciting. I’ve always wanted to go through several vintages of this wine side by side but have never gotten around to it. Thankfully, we were able to round up enough vintages to be able to see how this remarkable wine has held up and changed from vintage to vintage from 2014 to 2022. Yes, 9 years of wine.

Wednesday, November 27th, try this wine for yourself anytime from noon to 5pm at the Old Major Smokehouse located in the Milkyway Building at 4201 Millersville Road, Suite 119, Indianapolis, IN 46205. Reserve your tasting now, then show up anytime to explore the wines at your own pace. We will have some information on hand about the wine producers, the wines, the region, etc. If you want to nerd out on wine, I will be floating around to answer any questions you might have.

RESERVE HERE.

See you next week!