Darin Szilagyi
Wine X Magazine
Online Edition
Every Thanksgiving table has that one relative who refuses to evolve.
For wine, that relative is Cabernet and Chardonnay.
Year after year, they show up like legacy software nobody has had the guts to uninstall. Big oaky Chard, heavy Cabernet, same labels, same flavors, same food crimes against turkey breast.
If you are tired of playing in that sandbox, this year is the perfect time to reboot your Thanksgiving wine program and install 
pa new operating system.
Think Rhone varieties.
Think high-altitude California.
Think Starfield Vineyards in El Dorado.
This is your Thanksgiving wine upgrade guide, Wine X style.
SEO heads, here is the payload: Thanksgiving wine, Rhone varieties, Starfield Vineyards, El Dorado AVA, Viognier, Marsanne, Roussanne, Counoise, Mourvedre.
Why Cabernet and Chardonnay Do Not Belong On Your Thanksgiving Plate
Look, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay can be brilliant. On Thanksgiving they usually are not.
Cabernet Sauvignon: Great With Ribeye, Terrible With Turkey
Cabernet is tannin, oak, alcohol and attitude. On a Thursday in November it does things like:
* Turn white turkey meat into sawdust in your mouth
* Clash with cranberry sauce, herbs and green vegetables
* Shove all the subtle flavors off the table so it can flex its new barrique workout
Cabernet on Thanksgiving is that one CPU-hogging app that eats all your RAM then makes everything crash. Impressive on its own, unhelpful in a crowded system.
Chardonnay: Butter On Butter On Butter
The average Thanksgiving Chardonnay is a buttered toast bomb.
* Loads of oak and creamy texture
* Vanilla, caramel, toast on toast
* And yes, everyone brings it
When your plate is already running stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and sweet potatoes, adding oaky Chardonnay is like pouring more cheese on a grilled cheese. At some point you want contrast, not redundancy.
So if the goal is to stand out and not show up with Bottle Number Seven Of The Same Exact Thing, you need a different build.
Rhone Varietals: The Open-Source Answer To Thanksgiving Wine
Rhone grapes are the flexible, open-source tools of the wine world. They play nicely with others. They scale. They do not crash the system.
White Rhone Grapes
* Viognier – peach, apricot, honeysuckle, often with real texture and very little oak heaviness
* Marsanne – citrus, almond, stony minerality
* Roussanne – pear, tropical hints, beeswax and weight
Thanksgiving translation: aromatic, flavorful whites with enough body for stuffing and gravy, plus enough acidity to keep your palate awake.
Red Rhone Grapes
* Grenache – red berries, baking spice, gentle tannins
* Syrah – darker fruit, pepper, smoke
* Mourvedre – plums, earth, savory herbs
* Counoise, Cinsaut – light to medium body, bright red fruit, spice
These are reds that taste like wine with food, not wine against food. They highlight turkey, ham and all the side chaos rather than smother it.
Now, meet a California winery that lives in that Rhone space and has an actual story worth dragging to your Thanksgiving table.
Meet Starfield Vineyards: High Altitude Rhone In The Sierra Foothills
Starfield Vineyards sits in the El Dorado AVA above Placerville, California, at roughly 2,300 to 2,400 feet. Think Sierra Foothills, not Napa strip mall.
Tom and Rob Sinton founded Starfield in 2012 and planted 31 acres of hillside vineyards broken into about 24 micro-blocks. Seventeen grape varieties grow there. About two thirds are Rhone grapes, with Italian and Spanish outliers keeping things interesting.
From day one they have farmed sustainably and Fish-Friendly, leaving swaths of native forest inside and around the vineyard and installing buffer strips of deer grass and wild roses. They even put up more than 90 bluebird boxes so the bird brigades can handle some of the insect pressure.
In 2016 they started leaning into regenerative agriculture. No tilling. Natural cover crops. Insects as allies instead of targets. They are now transitioning the whole place to organic farming and plan to use drones on their steepest slopes to spray sulfur and release beneficial insects instead of beating up the hillside with heavy equipment.
The 2026 vintage will be organically farmed. The 2028 vintage is expected to carry full organic certification. That is not marketing fluff. That is a roadmap.
The Sierra Spice Effect
Walk Starfield and you are not just in vines. You are wrapped in conifers. Ponderosa pine, incense cedar, Douglas fir.
Over time the Sintons noticed something strange and cool: a shared aroma that popped up across their wines. Bright, woodsy, slightly minty, a little basil and floral. They nicknamed it Sierra Spice.
Those trees are packed with aromatic terpenes. The idea is that the oils make their way into the air and onto grape skins, then into fermenters, then quietly into the finished wines. It is their signature note. Not a gimmick. More like a regional accent.
If you have ever smelled a forest after rain and thought “I wish my wine smelled like this,” that is the Sierra Spice lane.
Star Fields And Solargraph Labels
The name Starfield comes from the belief that great wine is grown in star fields, places where fruit finds a sweet balance of aroma, flavor and texture.
Winemaker Rob Sinton is also a photo geek and an astronomy nerd, so he built pinhole cameras and made long-exposure Solargraph photos on the estate. The cameras sat for five days at 2,400 feet, capturing the arc of the sun as it moved over the vineyards and forest.
Those Solargraphs became the new labels. Twenty-four different designs, each with its own color field keyed to a specific wine. The 2024 Viognier glows in one palette, Hope Rising another, the 2023 Counoise a third. It is art plus data, a visual record of actual light over actual vines.
This is the opposite of slapping a castle clip-art on a bottle and calling it Reserve.
Under The Surface: Volcanic Mariposa Loam And Those Soil Tubes
If you really want to geek out at Thanksgiving, bring the little Starfield soil tubes.
The estate sits on volcanic Mariposa loam. It drains well, holds enough water to keep vines alive, and tends to be mod
erately acidic. The vineyard team literally packed samples into glass vials labeled by block.
The Mourvedre block sample is a deep rusty red, pulled from a 1 to 4 foot depth, with a pH around 5.2 and a gentle 5 percent slope. It is like the slow cooker partition of the vineyard: warms up steadily, holds heat, builds depth.
The Viognier block sample is lighter, more golden, with pH around 5.6 and a steeper 25 percent slope. That slope stresses the vines just enough to keep yields in check and acidity bright.
Same soil type, same estate, different slope, different pH, different grape, different wine. If you are the person at Thanksgiving who likes to talk about single origin coffee or the difference between SSD and spinning disk, this is your terroir talk track.
Three Starfield Rhone Wines That Crush Thanksgiving
Let us get to the bottles you actually need.
- 2024 Hope Rising – White Rhone Blend For Side-Dish Chaos
Grapes: 45 percent Marsanne, 45 percent Roussanne, 10 percent Viognier
Where it grows: East facing slopes that see cool morning sun and a 100 foot elevation range
Tech:
* Each variety fermented separately
* Marsanne and Roussanne in stainless steel to keep it crisp
* Viognier fermented in barrel for richness
* No malolactic fermentation, so acidity stays bright
* Final blend aged 8 months in mostly neutral French oak
How it tastes
Hope Rising is like the clean, efficient desktop you get after deleting 37 unused apps.
Marsanne brings citrus peel and that stony, mineral edge. Roussanne gives you texture, pear and a bit of exotic fruit. Viognier plugs in floral lift and stone fruit aromatics. A touch of oak adds polish without screaming, “Look at my toast notes.”
Thanksgiving pairings
* Herb stuffing, especially with fennel or sausage
* Mashed potatoes with obscene amounts of butter
* Butternut or delicata squash
* Roast turkey with citrus and herb rub
* Any creamy casserole that does not want to be steamrolled by Chardonnay
If you are only bringing one white and you want it to work from appetizers through turkey, Hope Rising is your multi-tool.
- 2024 Viognier – The Chardonnay Alternative With Actual Personality
Grapes: 93 percent Viognier, 5 percent Roussanne, 2 percent Marsanne
Where it grows: Estate east-facing slopes that span 100 feet of elevation at around 2,300 feet
Tech:
* Barrel fermented using selected yeasts
* Eight months in French oak, about a third new, the rest neutral
* Malolactic fermentation blocked to preserve acidity
How it tastes
This is not a blowsy peach smoothie. Starfield Viognier leans into:
* Bold tropical and stone fruit
* White flowers and citrus zest
* A creamy, spice laced mid palate
* A clean, mineral driven finish with that Sierra Highlands snap
The oak shows up as a frame, not a mask. You get texture, not syrup.
Thanksgiving pairings
* Roast turkey, especially the breast meat, where you need moisture and aromatics
* Honey glazed carrots or parsnips
* Cornbread stuffing
* Mac and cheese
* Triple cream cheeses before dinner
If someone in the family insists they only drink Chardonnay, pour this blind and watch them convert.
- 2023 Counoise – The Red That Makes Turkey Make Sense
Grapes: 95 percent Counoise, 5 percent Grenache
Where it grows: One of the highest elevations on the estate, taking advantage of warmer night temperatures that help this slow developer ripen
Tech:
* Whole cluster sandwich fermentation with a 48 hour cold soak for color stability
* About 14 days of primary fermentation
* Full malolactic
* Aged 18 months in a mix of new and neutral French oak
How it tastes
Counoise is the indie band of Rhone reds. Light on its feet, heavy on charm.
Starfield version delivers:
* Bright red fruit, think cranberry, raspberry and red cherry
* Spice and herbal lift, the Sierra Spice dial clicked into focus
* Low to medium tannins, just enough to shape the wine without drying you out
* A graceful finish that keeps you coming back for another sip
It is the kind of red you can drink while cooking, through dinner and into leftover turkey sandwiches.
Thanksgiving pairings
* Turkey, white or dark, especially with cranberry sauce
* Herb stuffing, especially if you sneak mushrooms in there
* Charcuterie and soft cheeses
* Roasted Brussels sprouts, green beans, roasted root vegetables
If you are a Pinot Noir person, Counoise sits in that same weight class but brings a different set of spices to the fight.
How To Build A Starfield Rhone Thanksgiving Lineup
Here is your simple Thanksgiving wine config file.
For whites
* 1 bottle 2024 Hope Rising
* 1 to 2 bottles 2024 Viognier
If you want a pre-game bottle, grabbing a Starfield sparkling or low-alcohol option for early afternoon football is not wrong.
For reds
* 2 bottles 2023 Counoise
* 1 bottle of another Starfield Rhone red, like Grenache or Mourvedre, if you can snag them
Serve the whites just chilled, not ice cold. Serve the reds slightly cool, around cellar temperature. Your wines will thank you.
FAQ For The Wine Nerd At The End Of The Table
Is Starfield good for Thanksgiving if I am cooking ham instead of turkey?
Yes. Hope Rising and Viognier handle honey glazed ham like pros. Counoise is perfect with anything smoky or sweet savory.
What if I cannot find Starfield where I live?
Search for Rhone style El Dorado or Sierra Foothills Viognier, Marsanne, Roussanne, Counoise. Look for labels that list those grapes specifically. The concept still works even if the label is not Starfield.
Do these wines age?
Yes, but they are built with food friendliness and freshness in mind. Right now, they are in the sweet spot for Thanksgiving drinking. Open and enjoy.
Final Reboot: Do Not Be The Cabernet Relative This Year
Thanksgiving is predictable enough.
Football.
Arguments about the proper way to make stuffing.
Someone falling asleep upright in a recliner by 4:30.
Your wine does not have to be part of the same old script.
Show up with Starfield Rhone wines and a couple of stories tucked in your back pocket. Talk about volcanic Mariposa loam and 25 percent slopes. Talk about bluebird boxes, forest terpenes and Solargraph labels that capture the sun light path over the vines.
Pour Hope Rising instead of Chardonnay. Pour Counoise instead of Cabernet.
You will not blend into the lineup this year.
You will be the person who finally gave Thanksgiving w
