Thanksgiving Wines and a DC Anniversary

jump in and try to commentate, I know, right? I know it too well. Listen, here's the deal. From all the turkey to the fixings, the right wine can certainly make your Thanksgiving table even better. You know that, but the key here is the right one. So we're going to pour up some great wine picks to help you toast the holiday. This is Claudia, the general manager of Berry Brothers and Rudd USA, which is based right down by the White House. Claudia, thank you for coming in. You already nailed it because you have champagne ready to go. already poured and ready to go. So cheers to that. We're talking about the best pairings for Thanksgiving. It's appropriate, I think, we start with the champagne because this is kind of the all-encompassing, right? Oh, absolutely. And Thanksgiving is, at its essence, a celebration with friends and family and loved ones. And the most amazing thing about champagne is it carries you through the entire experience. So you walk in, you greet your guests with a little glass, they get excited, it gets the palate ready to rumble, and then it goes. Pretty equally, fairly across the entire table as well. And it's a great pairing for dessert, too. All right, so there you go. We can start and finish with the champagne, which we have. Now, this particular champagne, this is one of your companies that you produce. You have all different wines that you brought in today, but this just happens to be one of yours. What's the price point on this? So this is $44.95. Okay, for the champagne. Now, here's the big question. The star of the show, if we go with a turkey, centerpiece, Thanksgiving dinner, what types of wines, if we put like an umbrella over it, what types of wine would pair best with turkey? So turkey is at its essence. It's not the richest, fattiest style of meat, so I think you're best served to go with something on the lighter red style or even a fuller white, which is the spread of what we brought today. All right, so serve me up with something that you brought today that you think will go well with turkey. What is this? Yeah, so for our white wine lovers, we've got the Storm Verde Chardonnay coming from South Africa, and so this is amazing because there's this nice sort of buttery richness to it. There's a crispness to it, especially for those of us that like the deep-fried turkey. This is fantastic with that because it's got nice acidity. I can see how that would pair with that. And because it's a white, like you said, this will go with the poultry. But this could also go with, if you had seafood, right, anything else that you have with your holiday dinner. Yes, exactly. So this is great also with mashed potatoes, anything with butter, which we know Thanksgiving comes with a hefty side of butter. This is going to be great to tie in with that as well. It's so funny you said that because I would, you know, you always think I'm an amateur. She's a pro. I'm a pro. We amateurs, you know, we're like, okay, we can figure out what to pair with like a red meat versus a white meat, but you don't think about the other flavors and, you know, like you said, a buttery feel, so you want something like this that will complement it. Yeah, that would be my preference, right? Okay, so what if we wanted to go a little bit heavier? What would we go with? Yes, so the classic pairing for Thanksgiving and for turkey in general is Pinot Noir, which we make a lot of in the U.S., but we at Berry Brothers, we're a European-based merchant, so we really do specialize in a lot of the French wines from fine wine regions over there, so like Burgundy. This one, so we've got the Bourgogne Pinot Noir, and this is really fun because it's actually 90% Pinot Noir, and then a little hint of Gamay. What does that do to the Pinot? So it just softens a little bit, and it gives it a nice fruitiness, so especially for those of you that like cranberry sauce, if you like gravy, all of the different fixings that go with your turkey, Pinot Noir is going to be amazing for that because it's lighter, it's not too tannic, and it's just juicy and delicious. And I think a Pinot is good. For someone who wants, you don't want the white wine, you want a red wine, but you don't want something that's too heavy, that might polarize somebody one way or another, it's a good start. You're right, it has a little bit of fruitiness, but it's not overwhelming. It's not a sweet wine, a super sweet wine. And what's the price point on that one? So this one is $39.95. Oh, well, that's a good price point. Exactly. For the holidays, a nice gift if you show up at somebody's house with that for the holidays. So we're really covering the different levels here from a price And the second one that we tried were... Where did this fall on the price ladder? This one fell at $74.95. Okay, so a little bit more. And then if we want to go all out, what do we have here? So this is our heavy hitter for the dinner. So we've got a Chateauneuf-du-Pape. This is the Domaine de la Jeunesse 2015. Okay, those are a lot of words that I would never ask for if I came into this store. What is this on a wine spectrum? Where does it fall? This is a red blend. So it's a red blend from the south of France. And it is based on Grenache. And so you've got a little bit of Syrah and a little bit of Mourvèdre. So it's kind of a smorgasbord, if you will, which is exactly what your Thanksgiving table is. So this is great for those of us that are going to include things like glazed ham, things like steak, things like lamb. If you've got anything heavier than turkey as a protein on the table, this is an excellent choice. This is a fuller flavor for sure than what we have with some of the other ones. Now, this was also at a little higher price point, right? Yes. So this is $114.95. Okay. So if you want to go a lot, you have that. Or you can get the $39 $39 bottle, which I think will make a lot of people happy to pair that with a turkey. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a short break. I'm going to see how fast Julie runs over here during the short break, and then we're going to wrap things up here in the kitchen. And she's already on her way. I know her too well. We'll see you with more right after this. Which one, Julie? Which one?