Graham's Six Grapes Port

Last Saturday, we hosted a post-Thanksgiving gathering that concluded with a port wine tasting. For this, we chose our favorite port (so far), Graham's Six Grapes.

We served it with a variety of snacks that included several cheeses, which we picked out at a local cheese shop with the help of the very friendly owner, Eric. These were:
Bayley Hazen Blue (a raw cow's milk cheese from Greensboro, Vt.)
Little Bloom on the Prairie (an artisinal goat cheese from Champaign, Ill.)
Pleasant Ridge Reserve (a farmstead cheese from Dodgeville, Wisc.)
A Spanish Manchego that won the 2005 award for best Manchego in the world

In addition, Jenny baked a persimmon spice cake and we purchased some Austrian dark chocolate, Rosa Pfeffer, that was made from sheep's milk and had pieces of pink peppercorns.

But, back to Six Grapes. If you haven't had a chance to sample this port, please do yourself the favor. It has a lovely, rich depth that continues to please us.

Thanksgiving bubbly.

The Los Angeles Times has a nice story in their food section about California sparkling wines as part of their Thanksgiving package.

I hadn't given much thought to Thanksgiving day bubbly, but as the article so cleverly points out, it's the perfect sip for pre-dinner grazing and socializing. Our numbers will be small this year - just Lee, me and our friend Brandon - but we think we make a large enough crowd for both feast and celebration.

Although the California picks from LA Times all seem wonderful, we'll most likely pop open a sparkling wine not on their list--Coppola's Sofia, which we picked up for about $20 last weekend.

You can read the LA Times story here.

Thanksgiving wines.

The New York Times has a good story about Thanksgiving wines - they speak generally about what types of wines go best with Thanksgiving dinner, and also rate several choices, all under $25.

One interesting point:

Whether red or white, dryer, leaner wines work best, especially if you are serving only one of each. If you are switching bottles with courses, wines like semi-sweet German rieslings, or big, fruity American pinot noirs and zinfandels will be pleasing, but otherwise they become fatiguing. Wines with zingy acidity and crisp minerality rather than powerful fruit flavors are most versatile with food, while offering refreshment, the most important thing.

The whole article can be found here.

Torres Sangre de Toro 2004

Sometime in the past couple of weeks, we made a dessert out of Whole Foods fig cake and Manchego cheese. The Whole Foods wine merchant recommended the Sangre de Toro when we asked for something Spanish to accompany our dessert. At first, I thought it was pretty good, but Jenny wasn't crazy about it. As time wore on, it turned out that it really wasn't all that great.

We are at a complete loss when it comes to Spanish wines. Does anybody have some advice for what types or regions to look for?

-Lee