How to Make Everyone Happy with Your Thanksgiving Wine Selection
Prepping for Thanksgiving can be a challenge, but follow these tips to make choosing your wines a breeze.
There are a lot of great holidays celebrated worldwide, but for food and wine lovers, there is no greater holiday than Thanksgiving! As an epicurean, what could be better than a day filled with cooking, eating, drinking, making memories with your loved ones, and giving thanks for all of the wonderful aspects of life? Even though I’m a self-proclaimed foodie, I was never one to go crazy over Thanksgiving. The traditional dishes were certainly delicious, but with a palate trained on various international cuisines, Thanksgiving dinner just wasn’t all that exciting to me. Well, that all changed when I started getting into wine. A whole new world of flavor and creativity opened up to me with the joys of food and wine pairing.
Needless to say, I quickly designated myself as the official Thanksgiving sommelier and I soon recognized the challenges of finding the right wine pairings. In addition to finding wines to complement the plethora of flavors on the Thanksgiving table, it can be just as difficult to find wines to please everyone’s palate, especially if you have a big family. So, let’s take a look at both aspects of selecting Thanksgiving wine pairings to help you gain major brownie points with family and friends on Turkey Day.
Wine Pairing Basics to Remember for Thanksgiving
First, when it comes to creating food and wine pairings that delight the senses, here are a few tried and true rules of thumb to remember:
Consider Acidity: Match the level of acidity in the dish to the level of acidity in the wine. You never want your dish to have higher acidity than your wine, or else the wine will seem flabby. High acid wines (think Pinot Noir, Riesling, etc.) match well with dishes that have a lot of acidity (e.g. tomato sauce, citrus) and also pair well with rich dishes because they seem to cut through the fat.
Match Weight & Intensity: Pair lighter dishes (e.g. salads, seafood) with lighter bodied wines (e.g. Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio). Heavier dishes (e.g. steak, stews) pair better with fuller-bodied wines like Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, etc.
Complement or Contrast Flavors: Match similar flavor profiles, like a rich Chardonnay to a creamy pasta, or balance opposing flavors, like an off-dry Riesling with spicy Thai food.
Balance Tannins with Fat: Cabernet Sauvignon and steak pair so well because the fat in the steak helps soften the tannins of a bold Cabernet.
Match Sweetness Levels: If you’re serving wine with dessert, then the wine should always be as sweet or sweeter than the dish. A dry wine with a sweet dessert can taste bitter or sour.
Sparkling Wines Are More Versatile Than You Think: From salty foods, to fried bites, and creamy or savory dishes, sparkling wines can pair well with just about anything thanks to their mouthwatering acidity and textured palate.
Now that we’ve covered our bases, let’s think about the flavors of Thanksgiving dinner. Obviously, the turkey is the star of the show. So, you’ll want a wine for a mild, medium-weight protein. Something not super big, robust, nor overly tannic. Then, we have all of the sides:
Creamy mashed potatoes need a wine with good acidity to cut the richness or a creamy palate to complement it.
Green beans need a brighter, vibrant wine to match those vegetal flavors.
Sweet potatoes call for a wine with fruitiness and low tannin.
Stuffing flavored with savory aromatics begs for a wine with some aromatic qualities of its own.
An autumnal salad is elevated by wines with subtle complexities or earthiness.
An assortment of appetizers calls for a crowd-pleasing sparkling wine or bottle of rosé.
Pies and other sweets are enhanced by a dessert wine with medium-level sweetness.
Start with Sparkling (Or Start, Continue & End with Sparkling)
Welcoming guests with a glass of bubbly sets the tone for a festive evening together. Plus, since sparkling wine makes a great pairing for a range of flavors, it’s the ideal accompaniment with appetizers. But remember, not all sparkling wines are created equally.
Sparkling wines like Champagne, Crémant, Cava, and Franciacorta are made in the traditional method, which means they undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle in which they’re sold. In short, this involves bottling a base wine and adding a liqueur de tirage (mixture of wine, yeast, sugar, and yeast nutrients) to the bottle to initiate that secondary fermentation. The bubbles in Champagne and other traditional method sparklers are the carbon dioxide released during fermentation that’s trapped in the bottle. Check out my Cava article for more info on the process.
Since the wine spends time in contact with the dead yeast cells (lees) in the bottle, traditional method sparkling wines typically have more complexities, texture, and even brioche or breadlike flavors than other sparkling wines like Prosecco.
Prosecco is made in the Charmat method or tank method in which the secondary fermentation takes place in a pressurized tank and the wine is bottled under pressure so none of the carbon dioxide is released in the process. That’s why Prosecco has a fruitier, fresher style.
For Thanksgiving dinner, consider serving a vibrant Blanc de Blancs traditional method sparkling wine or a high quality Prosecco from Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore D.O.C.G. Whereas a Blanc de Noirs made from Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier would be a delectable match for Thanksgiving dinner.
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White Wines for Thanksgiving
Grüner Veltliner
Grüner Veltliner hails from Austria and is easily the most important grape variety of the country. It also happens to be one of my all time favorite wines. Today, Grüner Veltliner is most heavily planted in Niederösterreich and northern Burgenland in Austria. It’s thought to be a crossing of Traminer and St. Georgen, originally from Burgenland.
Grüner makes super high-quality wines when grown with care in the vineyard. But if yields are too high, then the wines aren't so exciting. So, how do you find the good stuff on the shelves?
Look for DAC on the wine label. DAC stands for Districtus Austriae Controllatus. The designation represents 9 smaller regions in Austria where local producers agreed on a grape variety (or varieties) and a style of wine that they think best represents their region, and set some regulations for production.
When shopping for Grüner Veltliner, look out for these DACs:
Weinviertel
Leithaberg
Traisental
Kremstal
Kamptal
Wachau
Wagram
In 2003, Grüner Veltliner from the Weinviertel was the first Austrian wine to gain DAC status.....so that'd be a good place to start! Otherwise look for wines labeled with 'Reserve' from Kamptal and Kremstal or 'Smaragd' from Wachau.
Expect a full-bodied, concentrated white wine with acidity when it comes to high-quality Grüner Veltliner. These wines are usually brimming with notes of fresh citrus, stone fruit, and hints of white pepper, developing into more honeyed, toasty aromas with age.
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Chenin Blanc
Chenin Blanc is known for its high acidity and can range in style from dry, sparkling, and sweet wines. These wines deliver flavors of quince, pear, honey, stone fruits, and mango. With age, Chenin becomes richer and rounder with more honeyed, waxy flavors.
It's a great match to all the savory, sweet flavors found on the Thanksgiving table.
Now, Chenin Blanc grows in a lot of places around the world, but for quality look to the Loire Valley, France and South Africa.
In the Loire Valley, you'll find sparkling Chenin Blanc in Vouvray and Saumur, and dry wines in Anjou and Savennières.
In South Africa, Chenin Blanc is the most widely planted variety, and you'll find lots of barrel fermented, barrel aged examples with richer, more full-bodied style. Look to the Swartland for old vine Chenin Blanc.
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Chardonnay
For an all out classic wine pairing for Thanksgiving dinner, grab a bottle of Chardonnay. As a recovering anything-but-Chardonnay wine drinker, I’ll be honest that Chardonnay was never my first pick years ago. But after living in Burgundy, France, my mind was opened to a whole new world of terroir-driven Chardonnay wines that let the variety and sense of place shine through, unlike many of the mass-market, overly oaked bottles of Chardonnay we find on American shelves.
Chardonnay grows in practically every wine producing region around the world, so I won’t dive too much into regional styles here. Instead, I recommend looking up the wine in consideration online to understand the style before purchasing.
Cool Climate vs. Warm Climate: Generally, cool climate Chardonnay showcases crisp, zesty acidity with flavors of green apple, pear, lemon lime, and mineral qualities. Warm climate Chardonnay is richer and more fruit-forward because the grapes achieve greater ripeness. They usually have more tropical fruit flavors and a richer, voluptuous palate.
Battonage or Lees Stirring: If there was any of that going on, you’re going to have a wine with a richer, creamier texture as opposed to a crisp or fresh style.
Oak Influence: If the wine is barrel aged, and a large percentage of that is done in new oak barrels, the wine will be laden with more vanilla or spice flavors, and will likely be fuller-bodied. Where more neutral oak was used, the wine will have a rounder palate and stay true to Chardonnay’s varietal character.
There’s no right or wrong here. Everything depends on your personal preference and what style your friends and family are more likely to enjoy. In either case, Chardonnay is up there as one of the best wine pairings for turkey and all of the Thanksgiving sides.
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Red Wines for Thanksgiving
Cinsault
Cinsault (pronounced san-so) is a red grape variety that originally hails from the southern regions of France, such as Languedoc, the Southern Rhône Valley, and Provence. It’s a heat-resistant variety that thrives in warmer climates. Traditionally, Cinsault has played a supporting role in blends in the red and rosé wines of these regions. It adds elegance, freshness, aromatic lift, and can round out the bolder, rougher edges of other varieties in a blend.
When bottled as a single-varietal wine, Cinsault wines are light-to-medium bodied with low tannin, moderate acidity, and moderate alcohol, making them highly approachable wines. Loaded with red fruit flavors like strawberry, raspberry, red cherry, and red currant, plus notes of violet, rose petals, black tea, and white pepper, Cinsault is an ideal match to savory Thanksgiving flavors.
In addition to the French wine regions mentioned above, look for single-varietal bottlings from Central Coast California and wines from the Cape in South Africa.
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Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir is a thin-skinned, early-ripening red grape variety known for producing elegant, complex wines. It is famously difficult to grow, requiring cool to moderate climates and careful vineyard management. Despite its challenges, Pinot Noir is revered for its ability to reflect terroir, producing distinctive wines based on where it’s cultivated.
Typically, Pinot Noir wines are light-to-medium bodied with soft tannins, high acidity, and moderate alcohol. In cooler climates, this variety yields wines with cranberry, raspberry, and red cherry flavors, plus earthy notes of forest floor or mushroom. In warmer climates, wines will have more concentrated, fruit-driven character with riper aromas of cherry or strawberry. Pinot Noir is highly ageable and becomes more savory with age, especially examples from Burgundy.
There is no better place for Pinot Noir than Burgundy, France, and my favorite appellations there are Nuits-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin. Otherwise, Willamette Valley, Oregon, Marlborough, New Zealand, and Yarra Valley, Australia produce fabulous cool climate styles. Look to Sonoma or Russian River Valley for a richer California Pinot Noir.
Sip with Nik Picks:
Domaine Fourrier : Gevrey-Chambertin 1er cru "Clos St-Jacques Vieille Vigne" 2020
(ridiculous price point, but had it with a Master of Wine once and it was insane)
Zinfandel
Zinfandel is a robust, versatile red grape variety known for producing wines with bold fruit flavors and a wide range of styles, from light and fruity to full-bodied and spicy. It thrives in warm climates and has deep roots in California, though it originated in Croatia (where it’s called Tribidrag or Crljenak Kaštelanski) and also grows in Italy where it’s known as Primitivo.
Wines made from this lovable grape are medium-to-full bodied with supple tannins, high alcohol, and balanced acidity. Zinfandel wines are typically very fruit forward with aromas and flavors of blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, plum, and black cherry with hints of black pepper, licorice, or spice.
For me, California is where Zinfandel thrives. You’ll find exceptional bottlings in Lodi, Paso Robles, and Sonoma.
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Dessert Wines or After Dinner Wines
To round out your Thanksgiving wine selection, choose a dessert wine that complements whatever pies or sweet treats your family likes to savor.
For pumpkin pie, pecan or other nutty pies, chocolate pies, or an assortment of cheeses, try a Tawny Port.
Tawny Port offers nutty, caramelized flavors of toffee, dried fruits, and spices, which pair seamlessly with pecan pie or desserts with warm spices. Its velvety texture and moderate sweetness complement Thanksgiving’s rich flavors.
For creamy pies, sweet potato pie, crème brûlée, or bread pudding, try Sauternes or other botrytized wines.
These luscious, golden wines from Bordeaux are known for their flavors of honey, apricot, and candied ginger. Their luxurious texture and acidity cut through creamy or buttery desserts.
Red fruit pies or chocolate mousse call for a Brachetto d'Acqui.
Lightly sparkling and red-fruited, Brachetto d’Acqui is a refreshing match for chocolate desserts or lighter sweets. Its effervescence makes it festive and fun for the holiday table.
If apple pie or key lime pie is more your style, then a Moscato d’Asti will do the trick.
Lightly sparkling and aromatic, Moscato d’Asti is perfect for those who prefer a lighter dessert wine. Its notes of orange blossom, peach, and honey enhance the fruity elements of desserts.
Sip with Nik Picks:
Château d’Yquem Sauternes (a girl can dream)
Klein Constantia : Vin de Constance 2015 (my favorite sweet wine ever)
