Set the sparkles loose
Los Angeles Times/November 2006

The magic moment in the kitchen on Thanksgiving is not when the turkey emerges from the oven bronzed and more beautiful than any magazine cover, nor when the pan juices meld with the flour into a smooth and silken gravy, nor even when the potatoes being mashed in a deep stockpot have absorbed almost their weight in warm milk and soft butter.

For me, the tipping point always comes when my out-of-town friend Don eases the cork out of a bottle of Champagne and starts pouring. A mellow mood instantly turns effervescent. With everyone crowded near the stove toasting and sipping, any hint of stress involved in producing the year's biggest meal dissolves. Sparkling wine turns it into the year's best dinner party.

There's just something about holding a flute of bubbly wine on a late fall Thursday afternoon that seems so decadent, with the sun streaking in the windows, nowhere to go but the table, nothing to do but eat and ruminate on how this really is the happiest American holiday.

Zinfandel and other reds are much more associated with Thanksgiving, but they can wait for later, when everyone is sitting down with the turkey and rich trimmings. Wine with sparkles is the best choice for an aperitif, especially to be poured and drunk while standing (clear never stains after a spill). It's supremely festive but not at all filling, the perfect partner for light nibbles before the meal, such as the shrimp one friend always brings.

More important, sparkling wine is so bracing and invigorating it heightens anticipation and lowers tension. We almost always eat with friends who have become closer than family over our 25 years together, but we've also found Champagne will work the same wizardry with relatives. Even the difficult ones.

Don inevitably brings us serious French stuff, but this year it occurred to me we should be drinking domestic on the quintessential American holiday. And though other states are making headway, including New Mexico with Gruet, California produces the most world-class sparkling wines.

Most are from winemakers for the French houses that have made such inroads here in the more than quarter-century since Moët et Chandon started turning California grapes into Domaine Chandon sparklers in the Napa Valley.

Some of the biggest names in Champagne have California labels: Mumm, Taittinger and Louis Roederer among them. These are mostly made methode champenoise, meaning fermented in the bottle rather than in tanks, and have the refined bubbles and sophisticated taste of their antecedents in Old Europe.