The notion of cooking a roast turkey can be daunting to many home cooks but really folks, it’s just bigger than a chicken… and the perfect wine match?
With Christmas not far away it’s time to make the appropriate preparations for the most important lunch of the year. For those who enjoy cooking and entertaining at home, Christmas lunch is a relatively straightforward and traditional menu yet a very rewarding experience.
Conventional wisdom would point to chardonnay as a logical choice, ideally with some bottle age.
Roast turkey certainly calls for a white wine with texture and richness or even opulence, which is why this year, my perfect match is Seresin Pinot Gris 2008.
One of my personal favourites in Seresin portfolio their pinot gris is made in style that one associates with the Alsace region in France with a textural richness and complexity yet has very little oak influence.
Directly following the New Zealand Pinot Noir Celebration 2010 in February this year, I attended the Nelson Aromatics Symposium, staying with the Finns at Neudorf Vineyard.
I was met at the airport by Richard Flatman, who had just left Two Paddocks in Central Otago to join the Neudorf team. Flatman is one of the most passionate organic and biodynamic viticulture practitioners in the country and clearly the Finns are not resting on their laurels in bringing him onboard, forever striving to improve in the vineyards with a no compromise approach to every facet of making wine.
Savouring my glass of 2007 Seresin Sauvignon Blanc, actually I am guzzling and already on to my third glass, so good is this wine; concentrated, complex, invigorating and comparable to any top Sancerre or Pouilly Fume. It is the quintessential New Zealand wine, an exemplar and nexus to the geography and fast-evolving wine culture of New Zealand.
