New York State of Wine
Lively Local Wines To Match Any Menu

By PETER HELLMAN

The turkey and its fixings are the easy parts of the Thanksgiving meal; the wine part is trickier, as I learned the hard way. Years ago, I looked forward to uncorking my best bottles for family and friends on the holiday, reasoning that a roast turkey is omni-friendly to wine. But it wasn't the turkey that unexpectedly diminished the pleasure of those wines. It was the "fixings" - the sugary-tart cranberry sauce, the sweet potatoes with pineapple and melted marshmallow topping beloved by the kids as well as some of us adults. My best French wines, so nuanced and graceful at other meals, refused to co-exist with these fixtures. They turned edgy, even nasty.

So I gave up on my Old World cellar royalty and decided that, on this American holiday, the wines would also be American. Enter California zinfandel and chardonnay, Oregon pinot noir, Washington state syrah. These wines, which tend to have more intense fruit and higher alcohol than their French counterparts, stood up well enough to the Thanksgiving menu. Some even overpowered the unassertive turkey.

This year for the first time, I've decided that my Thanksgiving wines will be sourced from where I live - right here in New York. So many of us wine buffs can pinpoint every village on the map of faraway Burgundy, yet have no idea where on the state map to find Hammondsport or even Sagaponack. It was, in fact, a recently uncorked, deeply satisfying Cabernet Franc, vintage 2000, from Wolffer Vineyards in Sagaponack that jump-started my thinking about' New York wines. This category has been too far from my own day-to-day wine thoughts, even as the wines improve without much attention from the wine press or on restaurant wine lists.

The wine choices that work best at Thanksgiving, I believe, are not the "serious" wines that show their stuff with a lamb roast, a mushroom risotto, or a well-aged wedge of Swiss Gruyere. What this holiday table needs is wines that have lively fruit, at least a bit of spiciness, and soft tannins. Red or white wines both work well, so why not offer a choice? The perfect wine for delicate breast meat served with a bread and sage stuffing may be white, while that thigh joint with its crackly skin and a sausage stuffing may go better with red.

Not familiar with New York wines? Happily, there's a convenient and pleasant way to check them out. Just head, as I did last week, to one of the two Manhattan locations of Vintage New York, a store featuring a spectrum of the best wines from the state's four wine regions. Better yet, sit down for tasting at the wine bar at the rear of each shop. Currently more than 200 wines are on sale. The young pourers behind the bar at both locations are astute guides to these wines.

The cost is a paltry $S to taste five wines, an amount that is subtracted from wine purchases over $50. There's even a plate of crackers to nibble on between wines, which are kept under vacuum seal between pours to maintain freshness. The pre-purchase tasting option is especially useful for New Yorkers who are not familiar with their state wines, which is most of us.

While your local wine shop can legally offer wine samples poured by a distributor's representative, it can't open up any bottle in the house at any hour or sell samples as Vintage New York can. That's because Vintage New York's two shops are owned by Rivendell Winery in the Hudson Valley. Under state regulations, the shops function as "farm winery" stands, which can operate with more latitude than wine shops. Rivendell has a third outlet at the winery in New Paltz in the Hudson Valley.

The Finger Lakes region and Hudson Valley are the traditional producers of New York table wines. Eastern Long Island, where wine-making took hold little more than 20 years ago, is incontestably the state's "hot" region, with red and white wines showing firmness and style. Along with wines made from the traditional grapes, you'll be able to sample wines at Vintage New York made from hybrids of hardy native grapes crossed with European varieties. Among the best are two whites; seyval blanc and vidal blanc. A few sweet wines made from such fragrant native varieties as Delaware and Niagara are available, but Pd rather smell them at the Green Market than sip them at the table.

Vintage New York is the creation of Robert Ransom, owner of Rivendell Winery and Susan Wine, who with her former husband, Barry Wine, owned the celebrated Quilted Giraffe restaurant. Mr. Ransom and Ms. Wine opened Vintage New York in SoHo in 2000. "We felt that fashion happens in SoHo," said Mr. Ransom, "and we wanted to make New York wines fashionable:" The Upper West Side shop opened in 2002.

Vintage New York, 482 Broome St., 212-2269463, and 2492 Broadway, 212-721-9999, www.vintagenewyork.com. Both shops and wine sampling bars are open Monday-Saturday 11 a.m. -9 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. -9 p.m.