The best wines for the big feast
Somewhere in this great land on Thanksgiving Day, a guest on the corny side will arrive at the feast, grinning and bearing a bottle of Turkish wine.
“Turkey for the turkey,” he will say. The hosts will graciously accept the prize even as they groan inwardly. And yet, the jester might have it exactly right.
At the wine panel’s annual pre-Thanksgiving meal, where we test out wines to see what might go best with the turkey and sides, the guy who brought that wine was our tasting coordinator, Bernard Kirsch.
It was an $11 red, a 2017 Yakut from Kavaklidere, made largely of the little-known grapes okuzgozu and bogazkere, grown in the Eastern Anatolia and Aegean regions of Turkey. Bernie’s bad joke notwithstanding, the wine was excellent, dry and structured, with enough complexity in the flavors of myriad dried fruits to be interesting and refreshing.
Good Thanksgiving wines can come from anywhere, and anybody. They can be red or white, rosé or orange, sparkling or still. As widely as the wines might range, we have, in the panel’s many Thanksgiving run-throughs over the years, consolidated the characteristics that comprise the best Thanksgiving wines.
Here’s how our tasting works: Each member of the Thanksgiving panel — Florence Fabricant, Julia Moskin and Pete Wells, along with Bernie and me — brings two wines, a white and a red, each costing no more than $25.
We imagine an unruly feast, with lots of people, perhaps served buffet-style. For a big group, chances are nobody will want an exorbitant wine bill, hence our price cap.
If you are planning a sit-down Thanksgiving for six, by all means pick great, expensive wines, if you like. Offer a good Champagne to start, and follow with a fine white and a fine red. Use your most delicate glassware. Enjoy.
Our feast is festive, but maybe not so grand. We imagine, with a crowd, that stemware might not be an option. If not, glass tumblers are fine for these wines. If you must use plastic, beware the flimsy pretend stemware. The benefits are negligible and not worth the risk of spills. Opt for tumblers instead.
We emphasize that choosing wines for Thanksgiving is not an exercise in pairing. The meal — especially the sort of potluck buffet where guests bring all sorts of family favorites — is too complex and disparate to worry about precision matching.
Instead, we suggest picking versatile wines that go with many different sorts of flavors. And we are wary of wines that are more than 14 percent alcohol.
Some people argue that the alcohol level is meaningless, as long as the wine is balanced. I don’t buy that in general. But Thanksgiving in particular is a long, fatiguing journey, literally and figuratively: Many people travel over hills, dales and interstates to feast on the myriad filling dishes that cover the table. Don’t add to the languor with heavy, alcoholic wines.
We prefer wines that are nimble and energetic, that refresh the palate rather than enervate. Usually, these are wines with lively acidity, which snaps the mouth to attention and merges well with many flavors. While acidity is a friend, pronounced tannins, oakiness and unbalanced sweetness are not. Avoid them if possible.
As much wisdom as we have acquired over the years (by all means look up past columns for additional suggestions), our wine panel does not always adhere to it. My conjecture is that it’s no fun to bring the sure things: the Beaujolais and dry sauvignon blancs, the Loire reds and Italian whites, the barberas, Chiantis, pinot noirs and cabernet francs from the Finger Lakes.
The challenge is to add to the list. Julia succeeded admirably, at least with one of her wines, which turned out to be our top white. It was the 2016 Cuvée de O from Avancia, made from godello grapes grown in the Valdeorras region of Galicia, in northwestern Spain.
Godello is a grape that practically disappeared from Spain in the mid-20th century before it was resurrected, and this wine, with its texture, energy and touch of bitterness, showed why it’s now considered a rising star.
“It’s got great balance, and is perfect for people who like wines that aren’t fruity,” Julia said.
Pete’s wine, the 2016 People’s Zin from the People’s Wine Co., was soft, jammy and a trifle sweet, with some spicy, licorice flavor.
“Zin’s time will return,” he said. He was equally drawn, he added, by the wine’s red-whiteand-blue label, and the fact that it donates a portion of its proceeds to nonprofit organizations like Farmworker Justice and Coalition for the Homeless.
That’s not such a bad way to give thanks.