What wine pairs with pumpkin?
I love decorating the house with pumpkins in October and plan to cook them for Thanksgiving (waste not, want not). What’s a good wine for the big orange vegetable?
The answer: Chardonnay
That’s a gourd question. My No. 1 answer is chardonnay. More specifically, a rich, oaky chardonnay. I don’t know what you’ll be doing with those squashes, gastronomically speaking, but I’m assuming you’ll want to feature them prominently in whatever dish you cook. Perhaps a soup or a pumpkin mash as a side for, say, roast chicken or something else comforting? Or maybe that low-brow North American classic you won’t find on the menu in a Michelin-star restaurant: pumpkin casserole with roasted marshmallows.
Here are 14 wines to pair with your Thanksgiving turkey
The creamy texture and sweetness of just about every hard-skinned winter squash demands wine with roundness and weight. While technically dry, most chardonnays matured in oak barrels deliver not just richness but a suggestion of sweetness thanks to the buttery, vanilla-like profile.
Secondary options to consider: viognier and gewurztraminer, two whites with good flesh and suggestively sweet (though ultimately dry) profiles.