Cotes du Rhone – Memphis Flyer

By the time you read this, you will have mostly come out of that red wine- and tryptophan-induced coma into which you slipped sometime during the Detroit Lions’ game. While your post-meal memories might be a tad fuzzy, your motivation likely isn’t: That’s just what we do this time of year.

I’ve never been an unqualified fan of the hallowed holiday turkey, although my love of dressing is drastic. For years, I’ve been trying to make lamb the go-to meal for the holidays on the grounds that it is so much better in every conceivable way. Since this genius has been largely ignored by both my family and in-laws, I’ve decided that if we are going to set the menu on autopilot with reliable standards, at least we can give a little more thought to our wine.

If white wine is your thing, that Chardonnay that you were drinking in the summer or the last fund-raiser you went to likely won’t stand up to that roast turkey or ham. Try a Pouilly-Fumé or a white Bordeaux as a dry and crisp alternative. Of course, it’s hard to beat Champagnes and sparkling wines for the holiday spirit.

For reds, a Bordeaux and a Côtes du Rhône are tasty on their own and play well with that rich holiday fare. If you like a little lighter style with more fruit, try a Beaujolais. These wines must come from their regions in eponymous France to be labeled, but if you know the varietals that go into these wines, you can get good pretenders from almost anywhere.

Pouilly-Fumé and most white Bordeaux are made almost entirely out of Sauvignon Blanc grapes, so it’s easy to find a stand-in. The reds, that famous “Bordeaux blend” is 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 15 percent Cabernet Franc, and 15 percent Merlot. Unless you are from the “right bank” of the river Dordogne, in which case it’s reversed a bit with 70 percent Merlot and 15 percent Cabernets. The Brits call all of it a “claret” because they love to annoy the French. Penfold’s in Australia got its start making great French “style” wines down under and produce a Koonunga Hill Cabernet Merlot blend that is a nice stand-in for a Bordeaux with black currents and plum and a little oaky spice.

For a slightly earthier route, it’s hard to beat a Côtes du Rhône, which aren’t terrible expensive. By law, save a few small producers, Côtes du Rhônes are at least 40 percent grenache with at least 15 percent supplementary Mourdére and Syrah to finish out the blend. So just look for a grenache/Syrah blend, and you will have a good pretender for this stable of French wine.

Msheldrake | Dreamstime.com

A less “big” option, is a Beaujolais, which Karen MacNeil — who knows a lot more about wine than I do — described as the “the only white wine that happens to be red.” They tend to be light-bodied with a lot of fruit. The always trendy Beaujolais Nouveau is available only in the fall, and you aren’t doing it any favors by laying it up. Fortunately, standard Beaujolais are available all year round. They are largely made with the big, fruity gamay grape, but Beaujolais are made with a unique process called carbonic maceration, which involves fermenting the grapes in a carbon-rich environment before they are crushed. A good stand-in here would be to look for a gamay or a young Australian Shiraz. Or just open a bottle of gamay’s diva cousin, the Pinot Noir.

It’s worth noting that one of the reasons you hear a lot more about Pinot Noir is that the gamay was actually outlawed in 1395 by the Duke of Burgundy Phillippe the Bold for being “a very bad and disloyal plant.” And if that isn’t a reason to pop a cork of the stuff, I don’t know what is.

Prior to the Civil War, one of the biggest wine-producing regions in America was — wait for it — Missouri. The grape was Norton. Prohibition wiped the slate clean, so American wine-making, in a modern sense, is less than 100 years old and only seriously got started about the time the Beatles released Revolver.

On the other hand, the first wines to come out of France’s Rhône Valley pre-date the Romans. While the French take wine production very seriously, drinking the stuff is so ingrained in the culture that they’ve stopped being in awe of it. Sort of like with American tweens and the magic of Instagram.

Despite this, though, many Americans shy away from French wine. It may be a simple matter of taste: Most Old World wines don’t tend to hit the senses with a full frontal assault like the New World ones do. Part of the problem is, I suspect, simple translation: Everything sounds so damn existential in French. They are always going about the terroir of their wine — its sense of place. Actually, it just means dirt plus weather. To demystify the concept, just drive down Hwy 61 through Clarksdale — which is a three-hour round trip of weapons-grade dirt, plus weather, plus sense of place.

The other problem is more down to terroir, as it were. New World wines are labeled by grape varietals (merlot, pinot noir, malbec), while French wines are nearly all blended styles sold by region. Americans like to know exactly what we are getting, and we like it spoken in ‘Mericun. In practice, though, French regions stick to certain styles that have been governed by tradition and environment and, since 1932, the Appellation Contrôlée (AC). Under that umbrella is a fair bit of variation, but that’s where it gets fun.

You could do a lot worse than begin this adventure with the Rhône valley’s Côtes du Rhônes. This is what the French drink when they don’t want to talk about wine, thus freeing them up to go on about sex, food, and American foreign policy. I gather they disapprove of the latter.

If you live near Buster’s liquors, go there and stand before their wall of French wine. If the prices shock you, turn your head down slightly and start there. It’s a solid collection of Côtes du Rhône for under $20. As Mrs. Murff has pointed out, I am, in fact, the cheapest man currently living (she’s got me there). I picked out three at $14.99 each.

A Parallèle 45 is made in Tain l’Hermitage — which again sounds grander than it really is — it’s just a small town near a big hill. Because this is France, said hill has a very old story about a Frankish knight returning from the Crusades a gravely wounded war hero. As a reward for his service, the queen of France allowed him to live there to mend his wounds. He never left. The villagers knew he was up there by himself and called him, sensibly, the Hermit. Hence the name of the hill. When Craig Brewer does a movie about an off-the-grid lunatic, it’s not nearly so romantic. At any rate, Parallèle 45 is fruit-forward and with some spice to make it interesting. There is a touch of alcohol heat from the grenache, but the syrah gives it a bit of lightness. Saint Cosme comes in at the same price point, but the beauty here is that they don’t taste exactly alike. My favorite of the three was Famille Perrin, a Côtes du Rhône Villages, which is a slightly higher classification for the same price. There is less heat and some spice that doesn’t make itself quite so obvious. It’s a full flavor without being heavy.

In short, quit being a slave to the varietals, and take a trip with some blended French beauties. Sure, it’s a bit mysterious, but in the words of the Good Doctor Hunter Thompson, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Les vins

Saint Cosme, Côtes du Rhône, $14.99

Famille Perrin, Côtes du Rhône Villages, $14.99

Parallèle 45, Train L’Hermitage, $14.99