Our Favorite Celebrity Wine & Thanksgiving Dinner Pairings

Have you ever played the game of, “which celebrity, alive or dead, would you invite to Thanksgiving Dinner?” The Kuhlken family likes to play it every year, but with a twist. We play, “Which celebrity would you invite to Thanksgiving Dinner, and what wine would they drink?” I’ll share a few of our favorite celebrity Thanksgiving food and wine pairings so you can drink and eat like a star.

Freddie Mercury and the Queen of Wines

Our first invited Thanksgiving dinner guest is none other than Freddie Mercury the flamboyant lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. There are many reasons why Mr. Mercury is at the top of our guest list, and one significant reason is that he learned many of his most iconic dance moves from me. Seriously. That hip shimmy in the “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” video? He totally got that from me. Another reason why Freddie always has a seat at our Thanksgiving table is his love for Viognier, aka the “Queen of Wines.”

“I first learned about Viognier from the extraordinary British wine writer, Jancis Robinson, who called Viognier ‘the hedonist's white grape variety,’” said Freddie Mercury. “Now that is something I can get behind. I can’t get enough of the rich honeysuckle, ripe peaches, and musk of the Pedernales Cellars 2021 Viognier Reserve. When I celebrate Thanksgiving in the U.S., it is always on the table. When I am in the UK, I drink it straight from the bottle.”

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Still Over the Moon 

There is no greater or more enduring love than that shared by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. While we have said that we named our Over the Moon Rosé for my parents, Larry and Jeanie Kuhlken who met at NASA during the Apollo 11 mission, the real story is that we named it for lovebirds, Pitt and Jolie who first sanctified their love under a full Harvest Moon on Thanksgiving night while sipping rosé wine served to them by Jennifer Aniston. 

“We consider rosé wine to be a symbol of deep and abiding love, and it has an ever-present place on our dining table,” says Angelina Jolie. “Yes, of course, we own a Château in Côte d'Azur France where we produce a lovely Côtes-de-Provence rosé*. For special occasions, like Thanksgiving dinner, we choose an extraordinary wine, 2021 Over the Moon Rosé. Its delicate stone fruit flavors pair incredibly well with anything from fresh herb stuffing, to Waldorf salad, to sweet potato casserole.”

* No Russian oligarchs were harmed in making this farcical statement.

Stephen Hawking Geeks Out on the Signature Series 

Astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, always begs for an invitation to our Thanksgiving dinners. See, that NASA connection comes in handy after all. Julie, who has a Ph.D. in Philosophy, loves to get into esoteric debates with Mr. Hawking that go completely over most of our heads, but they seem to enjoy it. What really seals the deal for a seat at the table is his fascination with every detail that goes into making our Signature Series wines. Stephen loves reading the back label to know the pH, the TA, the soils, and anything he can get his mind around.

“I love wine made with black grapes as much as I love black holes,” says Stephen Hawking. “The 2018 Kuhlken Vineyards Touriga Nacional has exceptional gravity and is a big bang on the palate. Its floral and mineral aromatics along with the fresh berry and red cherry flavors make it a singular selection to pair with roast duck for Thanksgiving.”

George Clooney Prefers Valhalla

George Clooney and his brilliant wife Amal have deep connections with the Kuhlken family and Pedernales Cellars. Rumor has it that the eighteenth-century palatial villa on Lake Como in Italy with 25 rooms was designed as an exact replica of the Pedernales Cellars tasting room in Stonewall, Texas. Whether that’s true or not, we are absolutely certain that our good friend George has a brilliant wine palate. While he definitely loves to drink local and avidly stocks his massive wine cellar with loads of wine made in the Lombardy region of north-central Italy, he sometimes ventures to other wine regions. For example, he openly eschews Nebbiolo wine from northern Italy, in favor of a red blend made in the U.S. with Italian grape varieties to pair with his Thanksgiving. George let us in on his secret.

“The way I ensure we have a remarkable Thanksgiving Dinner is to choose a wine that will go with a wide variety of flavors. Italian-style red wine is the right pick. For me, the supremely best choice is Pedernales Cellars 2018 Valhalla. You can’t go wrong with a backbone of Dolcetto for its brambly berries, a healthy dose of Sangiovese for unabashedly tart cherry, and a dollop of Teroldego bringing silky pomegranate flavors that absolutely sing with a turkey. This is the wine any warrior wants on his way to Valhalla, well, or for Thanksgiving.”

When you can, drink wine with celebrities. When you can’t, drink wine like a celebrity. We wish you a Thanksgiving holiday full of gratitude and a table full of star-studded Pedernales Cellars wine. 

The Beginnings of a Very Un-Texas Harvest

Saying that we’ve had an atypical growing season doesn’t really capture the complexity of what we’ve seen in the vineyards in 2021. I think it is more accurate to say this is a very un-Texas harvest.

Let’s start with the biggest weather event of the year, the historic deep freeze in February. Believe it or not, it wasn’t catastrophic. Yes, we lost some vines, but it didn’t necessarily change what the amount or quality of the grapes was this year.

Hailstorms are another story. We completely lost our Teroldego and Sangiovese crop in our estate Kuhlken Vineyard in the Texas Hill Country due to spring hail damage. Sadly, we will not have these two varieties in our 2021 wines. We’ll also have much smaller than desired crops for Graciano and Syrah from the Texas High Plains because of that dastardly hail.

The result of hail and freezes in the spring is that we will have a much smaller overall crop than we had in 2019—which was a big year. However, overall, with fruit from both the Hill Country and High Plains, it will be a larger crop than we had last year.

Perhaps the most un-Texan aspect of this season is the cooler than normal temperatures. We have had far fewer days with temperatures in the 90+ degree range than in a typical season. Less heat means our grapes ripen more slowly. That and the late-season rains have delayed our harvest by a couple of weeks.  

We are just getting started with harvest in the Texas Hill Country. We expect to pick Petite Sirah and Carignan next week (mid-August). Thankfully none of our grapes have had serious problems because of the rain, no fungal pressure, or shut down on ripening. Rain has been great for our new vines planted in Kuhlken Estate Vineyard! We only have about a half dozen small blocks to pick various vineyards, so we will be done with our Hill Country yield fairly quickly.

We are keeping our eye on the vineyards in the Texas High Plains. We just got our first round of meaningful chemistry numbers this week, which we usually receive in July. Most grapes just went through veraison in early August, and harvest is three weeks behind. We anticipate picking white grapes first, starting the week of August 23. Tempranillo is the first red grape we’ll pick. Those grapes are starting to put on sugar now. We expect to see them ripen by the first week or two of September.

We are fortunate to have many long-term relationships with growers in the High Plains and are looking at really healthy crops from our traditional blocks at Bingham Family Vineyards and Reddy Vineyards. We’re excited to have Viognier in good quantities after having a shortage of our mainstay varietal in 2020. The Vermentino is looking great as well. We have a couple of blocks of Grenache and Mourvèdre in Desert Willow Vineyard near Seminole, Texas and the vines look amazing this year. We’re really excited about this beautiful crop.

As long as we can avoid late summer storms and heavy rains, the later harvest can mean a fantastic 2021 harvest. Having our crop hanging later into the season brings the promising potential for balanced chemistry as the grapes ripen. The cooler temperatures and cooler nights allow the grapes to retain their natural acidity really well while the grapes achieve phenolic ripeness and gain more sugar. We’re usually racing to pick the grapes that are ripening very quickly in high temperatures.

It may be an Un-Texas Harvest in many ways, but what remains incredibly Texan is that our vineyard manager, our growers, and our cellar team are all pulling out the stops to ensure we have the best quality grapes in the winery as possible. We’re optimistic for a great 2021 vintage. 

Spring Brings Extensive Planting in the Pedernales Cellars Kuhlken Vineyards

April has kept us busy at Pedernales Cellars, with spring weather drawing guests to our winery, Wine Club members pickup party, and planting new vines at Kuhlken Vineyards!

Winemaker, president, and co-founder David Kuhlken and vineyard manager Evan McKibben have been busy in our Kuhlken Estate Vineyards this season. The vineyard team has planted more 5,000 vines this year to replace underperforming vines and to expand acreage under vine. To ensure the new vines have a good start in the infertile soil and degraded sandstone in Kuhlken Vineyards, we spread a manure compost with our mulch spreader.

Our site, located in Bell Mountain American Viticultural Area, was originally planted in 1995 and is a fantastic location to grow Mediterranean grape varietals. This season we planted Grenache, Tempranillo, Petite Sirah, Mourvèdre, and Sangiovese. 

Some of the new vines replace vines that have been damaged in severe weather. Evan McKibben said, “We have already seen that some vines planted last year did not survive. In addition to the damage to young plants, we had more damage in the Tempranillo mature vines than in any other variety. Fortunately, the Albariño fruit looks really good. We are mainly focused on new plantings for the next three years for expansion rather than to replace vines. We had forecast a light fruit load this year, so the freeze we had did not affect us much. We should have a great fruit set for the 2023 harvest and then build steadily from there.”

Looking Ahead

David Kuhlken sees a program of steady planting next spring and in the coming years.

“Going forward we will still have many of the same varieties with the replant. Namely, Tempranillo, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Touriga Nacional, and Tinta Amarela. But we are adding blocks of Petite Sirah, Alicante Bouschet, and Graciano to the mix, reflecting the things that have proven consistent complements in our most exclusive reserve wine called KO and Reserve programs. We also have increased the amount of Sangiovese because it really has been a great variety in the Hill Country.

Grenache will take a few years to be mature enough to stand on its own. Joanna and I both really love Grenache for a varietal red, so the long-term goal would be to have it in the program as a standalone.  Still, that could be several years down the road when it comes to the new estate planting. In fact, 2021 is the last year for the old Grenache block, and yields are quite low. In the interim, we might have Grenache from the High Plains as a varietal red.

Evan has been literally transforming things at the estate and has done an incredible amount of work these past 4 months. I will add about the planting this year, that Evan and our team will also plant 1,000 more Touriga vines, bringing the total up to 6,000 vines in 2021.

Have you ever visited a vineyard, worked on planting vines, or harvesting grapes? Follow Evan on Instagram, @vineyardevan, to see photos and videos of all of our vineyard projects. You can also follow the main Pedernales Cellars Instagram account for updates. 

Winemaker’s Notes: Blending of 2018 Kuhlken-Osterberg Wine

This week at Pedernales Cellars we have been immersed in conducting blending trials for our most exclusive reserve wine called KO. Why do we call it KO? This wine is named after the families that founded Pedernales Cellars.

It is Pedernales Cellars’ most coveted blend and it is only available to our Collector’s Club wine club members by allocation. That means the winemaking team and I get to really showcase our creativity as well as the nuances of each vintage included in KO which makes for an exciting time in the cellar.

What makes Pedernales Cellars KO wine so special?

We first introduced our KO wine with the 2012 vintage. Our philosophy for KO is to make a well-structured and complex wine with a blend of red grapes including a foundation of at least 50 percent Portuguese varietals sourced from Kuhlken Vineyards. Touriga Nacional, Tinta Cão, and Tinta Amarela are incredible grapes to work with giving the wine a consistent core with aromatic notes of leather, coffee, dark, dark fruit, and even tobacco.

Touriga Nacional by itself is less fruit driven, having more earthy and animal qualities. It is an interesting varietal that brings amazing qualities to the wine. So, we use this as our starting point for each vintage and then explore the other grape varietals that will best complement the Portuguese mainstays to craft a well-balanced wine.

What makes this a premier wine worthy of allocation?

The grapes that make KO are selected from scarce lots of fruit. They come from mature vines in our vineyard that are inherently low yielding. We spare no expense in the winemaking process from the grape varieties we choose to the selection of the best French oak barrels for aging.

We begin our winemaking and blending process with a firm concept of what we want in the finished wine. We identify specific lots in the vineyard to put into a higher tier for harvest and cellaring treatment to capture the tannin and deep aromatic fruit of the Portuguese varietals to be the core of KO wine. We develop other lots of excellent grapes to bring out bright red fruit flavors and complimentary soft tannins.

Every aspect of the winemaking process focuses on making the best Portuguese style wine that we can make in Texas and it can only be made in very limited quantities. We hand pick all of the grapes from our Hill Country Estate and some varieties from the High Plains too. We use hand sorting to refine down to the best lots, and selective fermentation of only free-run juice. It’s an incredibly hands-on process, and it is worth it.

What makes this vintage of KO a stand-out wine for Pedernales Cellars?

Variability in the growing conditions from vintage to vintage allow us to bring in our winemaking creativity to determine the final blend. In 2012, KO wine was made with of 76 percent Tinta Amarela and 24 percent Syrah. The 2014 vintage was a blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinta Cão, Tinta Amarela, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Mourvèdre.

Right now, we are experimenting with about two dozen trial blends in the cellar to determine the final blend for the 2018 vintage. An exciting new component in the mix for this vintage is the Teroldego, which is a red Italian grape variety grown primarily in the northeastern region of Trentino-Alto Adige. Teroldego is growing really well in the Texas High Plains and is an incredibly big fruit with nice tannin and brings fantastic qualities to our blend.

Another new grape in our mix this year is Grenache. We now have 12-year-old Grenache vines in our vineyard which bears hearty fruit that makes age-worthy red wines, rather than light styles.

Where to find KO wines.

Join us on Sunday, October 20 for our KO Wine Pick-up Party, for 6 or 12 bottle club members. We will release our 2017 vintage, with less than 100 cases available.

As a special treat, we will taste the 2018 vintage from the barrel. 

We can’t wait to hear what you think.