Friendsgiving may look a little different this year, but then, the concept has always been lovingly offbeat. On or around Thanksgiving, you gather with friends for a big meal, delicious drinks, and a chance to give thanks for all the blessings, baes, and other wonderful boons in your lives. While Thanksgiving tends to have a dreadful sameness to it, with joyless relatives fighting for the best parts of a golden-brown-bird, Friendsgiving looks different from house to house, from apartment to apartment, from backyard to backyard. You get the idea. Rather than featuring a set menu of must-have dishes, Friendsgiving is a sort of potluck free-for-all, incorporating a wealth of ethnic foodways, dietary preferences, family traditions, and YouTube cooking video experiments — all rolled into one.
With such a wonderful mashup in play, you need a wine that’s versatile, ultra-social, and special. And that’s where Segura Viudas Cava becomes Friendsgiving’s bestie. With a history dating back all the way to the 12th century, Segura Viudas uses indigenous Spanish grapes from the Penedès region of Catalonia to make a fabulous range of Cavas in the traditional Champagne method. The best part is that there’s a wine in the Segura Viudas lineup for every dish on the table, from classic Brut Cava that’ll glide you through the appetizers to an aged Reserva Heredad that just might steal the show from your bestie’s bourbon-soaked toffee pecan pie. With such delicious sparklers on the table, there will be far less focus on subjects like politics (sigh), and more on eating and drinking — and believe us, that’s a good thing. Here’s our guide to building the ultimate Friendsgiving table, with plenty of Segura Viudas sparkle.
Hover over and click on the interactive table below to see how to build the ultimate Friendsgiving table, with plenty of Segura Viudas sparkle.
With the days of high school talent shows and bold matching outfit choices sadly behind you, Friendsgiving is one of those rare excuses to force your friends into matching holiday gear like these drinking-themed Thanksgiving T-shirts. Varieties abound, though we especially love “Let’s Get Basted,” for obvious reasons (it’s motivational).
We’re not suggesting a Martha-level tablescape here — there will be no hand-woven tweed placecard holders, if that’s a thing. But since you’re featuring a special range of Spanish bubbly, why not pay respect with a bunch of grapes? Granted, you won’t be able to get your hands on the indigenous Spanish Macabeo, Xarel-lo or Parellada grapes that Segura Viudas uses for its Cavas, but even a Thompson Seedless grape cluster looks festive, and can help feed hungry pre-dinner grazers.
Keep extra bottles at the ready with a glamorous wine rack on the buffet or drinks table. It’s golden, funky, all-in-one — plus it’s Mid-Century Modern, and isn’t everything supposed to be MCM these days? You’ll be opening many bottles at Friendsgiving — toasting new jobs, new relationships, bad jobs, and/or ex-relationships — and this rack will keep them looking fab AF.
Tame those messy drips with some stylish wine bottle coasters. A bottle of Segura Viudas Gran Cuvée would look even more fabulous perched on this rustic-chill ceramic wine bottle coaster. Bonus: It will also spare that gorgeous ivory tablecloth your grandmother gave you — the one you’re finally using (and yes, she’d be proud).
You can go with flute glasses for that first vital glass of “welcome bubbly,” but if you want to really indulge in the aromas and taste of your bubbly — and we know you do — go with a set of elegant white wine glasses. They’re the perfect vessel for showing off the fine bubbles and creamy mousse of the Segura Viudas sparklers that you’ll be toasting with all holiday season long.
Whether you’re serving that all-important first glass of bubbles in a stylish coupe or a simple mason jar, keep Friendsgiving glasses brimming with Segura Viudas Brut Reserva. This stuff is made for the aperitif hour — not only is it festive and delicious, it’s a ridiculously good value. It isn’t just great for ice-breaking, it’s an ideal palate primer, with notes of citrus and tropical fruits, light floral touches, and bracing acidity to whet the appetite for all the delicious food (so much food) to come. The Brut Cava’s complexity comes from a special technique that involves intermingling the base wine with the spent yeast cells (also called lees) for three months, followed by another 15 months of lees contact
The Friendsgiving appetizer hour always includes a welcome medley of flavors, so you’ll want a versatile wine on hand that works with just about anything your friends dish up. You seriously can’t go wrong with Segura Viudas Brut Reserva. With its biscuity freshness, it’s lovely to sip solo, but also pairs beautifully with anything from cheese boards to fresh seafood (think Spanish boquerones or anchovies drizzled with olive oil, or classic shrimp cocktail). At this price, you can “pair-speriment” with all kinds of no-rules Friendsgiving food matchups. (“I told you it would go with pizza rolls!”)
Brut Reserva pairs incredibly well with just about anything you’ll find on a delightfully quirky Friendsgiving appetizer table — and that includes cheese. Use this gorgeously rustic ceramic Brie baker to transform a simple wheel of Brie into a warm, creamy mass, and suddenly, you’re a genius cheese-master/Martha-Stewart hybrid. This melty marvel may just provide the perfect excuse to break out the Reserva Heredad, a higher-end bottle that’s a bit richer, with a hint of smoke on the nose and a lovely tight pearl in the bubbles. Along with biscuit, honey, and floral notes, the wine’s cheese-slicing acidity is a delicious foil for rich, creamy cheeses. Bonus points: Both the Brut Reserva and Reserva Heredad have a long finish, meaning you can pretend to be savoring your Cava as you think of a snappy response to your best friend’s new boyfriend’s “compliment” about your hairstyle. Friendsgiving is underway!
Whether you brine, baste, deep fry, or just shut the oven door and kneel for three hours in front of your Turkey Vision Board, Thanksgiving’s marquee protein deserves a festive, complex wine. Bubbles add another textural element to your traditional turkey-wine pairing, with creamy mousse that matches beautifully with richer and leaner cuts. Enter Segura Viudas Gran Cuvée. It spends 15 months in the bottle, like the Brut Reserva, but adds Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to the traditional blend of Macabeo and Parellada grapes. The result is elegant and fruity, combining Chardonnay’s lean minerality and elegance with a hint of wild berries from the fleshy Pinot Noir. Bonus points: The Gran Cuvée can stand up to bold flavors, meaning it tastes as delicious with a classic herb-roasted turkey as a friend’s turkey mole casserole, or even an umami-rich, soy-glazed Tofurkey.
At this time of year we’re becoming increasingly aware of Indigenous values and traditions, so a bottle like Segura Viudas Reserva Heredad is an extra-fitting addition to the Friendsgiving table. This sophisticated sparkler is aged in bottle, contact with the lees, for more than 30 months. The result is a Cava that separates this year’s mature Friendsgiving feast from last year’s, when the table was crowded with hard seltzer — because we were all a bit more innocent then, but also much more naïve about how to spend our short time together. Yes, maturity has its burdens, but it also comes with delicious, refined, elegant Cavas, like this one.
Well-made rosé has a kind of ruminating, romantic complexity that makes it ideal for fall. Segura Viudas Brut Rosé is made with Garnacha and Trepat, an indigenous Spanish grape with dramatic black skin and a juicy, perky fleshiness in the bottle. With the rounded fruit and florals at play, you can easily set this Cava up against the dark-meat cuts of an herb-roasted turkey. In fact, like that one friend who never RSVPs, Segura Viudas Brut Rosé can show up at any point in the Friendsgiving festivities. The nuttiness, citrus, and even limestone notes make it an excellent aperitif alternative, but the creamy mousse and acidity make it a solid option to pair alongside buttery, fruity, nutty Friendsgiving desserts.
You’ll need a jaw-dropping wine to pair with those showstopping Friendsgiving desserts, and Reserva Heredad Brut Cava is just the thing. As part of the Segura Viudas traditional winemaking process, the Heredad stays in contact with the lees for a minimum of 30 months. Refresher course: Being “in contact with the lees” means the wine is mixing with dead yeast cells. It sounds a bit graphic, but the end result is delicious — a subtle, complex, lushly unfolding symphony of flavors that range from toasty and caramelly to lemony, buttery, nutty, bready, and beyond. We’re talking biscuit flavors, with floral and honey notes. That makes this Cava the perfect match for “I-can’t believe-you-made-this” desserts. If you have friends that like to bake, send them a bottle for inspiration and ask them to work their magic on something sweet — especially if it involves toffee, hazelnuts, spices, buttery crusts, or soft baked fruit.
We don’t know about you, but bubbles make us want to dance. In keeping with the wonderful chaos of Friendsgiving, your playlist has to be a mashup, with everyone getting a pick — from the guy in his jazz phase to your friend with the `90s nostalgia fetish to that girl (looking at you, Meaghan!) who tears up every time a Lumineers song comes on. A festive after-dinner coupe of the complex, deluxe Segura Viudas Reserva Heredad may be just the thing to take you from Charlie Parker’s “Body and Soul” to 4 Non Blondes “What’s Up” (aka “What’s Going On”) — although by the end of the night, with that song blasting, you might just be drinking straight from the fancy bottle. (Because yes, you’re mature now, but it’s Friendsgiving, so anything goes.)
