Simple guide to picking wines for Thanksgiving

It’s best to have an equal number of reds, whites for your guests.

Thanksgiving 2020 was an anomaly, I hope, in which potentially ominous consequences disrupted what typically is a joyous gathering.

This year, at least, the run-up to the holiday feels closer to routine if by no means ordinary. The pandemic lingers, for one thing. For another, it will be more expensive.

The key to selecting wines for Thanksgiving is versatility. Choosing wines that go with many sorts of dishes is a far better bet than selecting wines that, no matter how good they may be, are limited in the sorts of dishes they will accompany well.

Don’t fret about specific food-and-wine pairings. Certain components like turkey and stuffing may seem invariable, but the preparations are so individualistic and the sides so diverse that pinpoint pairings feel like futile fussiness.

Let’s be clear: Relatives may judge you on your hairstyle and marital status, but in the context of the holiday few will be held accountable

for not creating precise pairings. Besides, if good wine and good food don’t make magic together, well, you still have good wine and good food, and what’s wrong with that?

Unless you and your guests are dedicated wine lovers, the food and the people will be the stars. Wine is simply a supporting player that will make things taste and feel better.

Still, it’s best to create a scenario that increases the odds of magic. For that, we offer some concrete advice.

First, and most important, you want lively wines. What does that mean? A lot of words connote liveliness, like fresh, lithe and energetic. These words technically refer to one key quality in a wine, acidity.

Wines with just the right amount of acidity enable a thrilling high-wire act. Too much, and a wine tumbles into the pit of harshness. Too little and it flops into the tank of dull tedium. With the right acidity, wine maintains a tension that invigorates and refreshes.

We imagine most people’s Thanksgivings to be long meals that may begin with snacks and noshes, extend through appetizers and main courses and end, perhaps hours later, with desserts.

The liveliness that comes with good acidity is in effect a survival strategy. Such wines will rejuvenate, even as all that food pushes you toward a comatose state.

The French naturally have a term for this characteristic in wines, digestibilité, wines that are delicious and easy to drink without being freighted with excess or weighing too heavily in the gut.

A word about planning: It’s always good to have on hand more wine than you think you will need. Our policy is to figure one bottle per drinking person, whether you are planning a sit-down dinner for four or a buffet for 20.

That sounds like a lot, and it is. Most likely you will not come close to finishing the wine. But you won’t run out, and that’s the most important thing. You can hand out extra bottles as keepsakes.

Plan to have equal numbers of reds and whites. Your guests may prefer one or the other, regardless of your feelings. Let them have it.

TONY CENICOLA/NEW YORK TIMES When it comes to deciding which wine to serve on Thanksgiving, consider a light-bodied, nimble wine that can be consumed with many varied foods over a span of hours, ideally one not high in alcohol.