It’s November. Can you believe it?! Well now that we’ve accepted how quickly time is passing, it’s time to consider the wine you’ll bring or serve with Thanksgiving dinner since it’s quite literally around the corner.

Aside from food, choosing wine for Thanksgiving dinner is an essential part of the meal. While some will certainly select more than one wine to go with each course or dish in the meal, I’ll also provide a versatile Thanksgiving wine that is sure to please. A classic Thanksgiving meal will likely have turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, herb-filled stuffing, cranberry sauces, with the culmination of pumpkin pie. So, you might be wondering how a single wine could take you across all those flavors from start to finish. Well, sparkling wine or champagne might be the wine wonder you’re looking for. Sparkling wine is an elegant and seamless food pairing with nearly any meal.

Now, for specific pairings, it’s important to remember that pairing wine with food is often a matter of personal preference. For white wines, the priority is finding a wine with well-balanced acidity. For red wines, the tannins should be reasonably tame so they will support the flavors of the food rather than overpower. Generally, you’d be safe choosing any of the following wines: Barbera, Tempranillo, or Zinfandel for red lovers, and Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, or Riesling for those who prefer white.

My Top Thanksgiving Red Wine

Tempranillo: The Tempranillo grape increases complexity while graciously handling the variety of flavors in a traditional Thanksgiving meal. The prevalent acidity of the Tempranillo partner well with creamy dishes, such as mashed potatoes and gravy, while the dried fruit flavors like fig and plum pair wonderfully with herb-infused stuffing and both white and dark meat turkey. I’d recommend our 2018 Tempranillo!

My Top Thanksgiving White Wine

Riesling: This white wine can either be super dry or fairly sweet but, it pairs well with any dish that is spicy, salty, or sweet. Riesling is a top Thanksgiving dinner white wine due to innate fruity and honey flavors along with clarifying acidity that provides an amazing pairing for dish likes yams, turkey, and herb-filled stuffing. I’d recommend our 2020 Riesling.

My Top Surprise Thanksgiving Wine

Huckleberry d’Latah: This wine has similar tasting profile to our Riesling, as we use our Riesling as the base then add our huckleberry juice and concentrate to the finished wine. I love serving this wine at Thanksgiving because the tartness of the huckleberry pairs fantastic with all things cranberry, as well as creamy dishes and herb-centric food. I also love surprising people who would not normally drink our Huckleberry, and then having them choose it as their favorite pairing of the night! I told this story to one of our distributors, so he took a bottle home and served it for his Thanksgiving. He called me the following week raving that it was so good and he will always serve it for Thanksgiving now! Try our Huckleberry d’Latah now!

All I know is that when it comes to holidays with my family, you can never have enough wine so stalk up and be sure to bring an extra bottle to your Thanksgiving dinner!

Cheers,
Natalie