Thanksgiving Wine: Turkey Ready Bottles, Sunset Magazine

Sunset Magazine
November 2020
Matt Bean

Wine can be a welcome distraction. But it is also emblematic of our ability to transcend tragedy, to bounce back. Fires rage. Pests descend. Floods rise. And we rebuild. Our first ever wine issue* left us feeling energized by the boundless optimism and potential of American wine in the West. As we went to press, our friends and colleagues in wine country—with whom we’d normally be handling quotidian tasks such as fact-checking or final edits—were instead relaying tales from the front lines of a Napa ablaze.

A funny thing happened on the way to the apocalypse, however: The message that came back to us was one of resilience, not woe. Winemaking is a difficult business. It’s one of passion and hard work and it takes forever to see results. It’s done on a generational scale. Our stories reflect that. We’re all caretakers for the next generation, whether that goes in a bottle or on a page. Cheers, everyone. Here’s to 2021.