thanksgiving, dessert, wine

Thanksgiving. This used to be my favourite holiday of the year, but since we've stopped celebrating Christmas with trees and presents and lots of running around, I think Christmas has become my favourite holiday of the year. Still, Thanksgiving is a close second. Turkey, pumpkin, a coloured landscape, mornings when breath hangs in the air as vapour mist, crunching leaves underfoot. There's something suspended about October and it's less colourful cousin November. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, what I really want to say is, "Castellani Sommavite Santovino!"

No, that's not an Italian holiday greeting. It's a bottle of dessert wine that comes from Tuscany and deserves to be on your Thanksgiving table this year. It's a BARGAIN at $10.95 for a 500ml bottle.

Full of spice and dried fruit and toasted nuts all mingling just under a swift waft of alcohol, this nicely balanced wine will please even those at the table who profess to hate sweet wine.

My friend Jane brought it to a wine tasting recently.

We had it with pumpkin pie.

It was perfect.

The not too-too sweet of the pie and the restrained sugar in the wine worked together. The richness of the wine was just enough to bolster the luscious quality of the pie. The spices in each complimented.

I'm going to try the wine with a pumpkin tiramisu from Martha Stewart. And then won't I just take a moment to be thankful for Martha Stewart, Italians who make such good dessert wine, and a few other things.