Holiday Food & Wine Pairings Made Easy

Because no one ever sings "I'm Dreaming of a White Zinfandel"

It's the wine rack equivalent of a "mirror, mirror on the wall" moment: "What's the best wine pairing for holiday meals?"

If wine racks could shrug, there'd be a lot of broken wine bottles every holiday season. Thankfully, they just ignore the annual question as we mutter aloud, scrunch up our foreheads, and scrutinize the serried ranks of labels, hoping that one will actually say something like "holiday notes, with a hint of pacified in-laws."

Here's the challenge with holiday wine pairings: wine tastings don't usually feature forks heaped with turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, and cornbread. Your best wines might be ravishing en solitaire, but a poor match with the variety of rich, acidic, sweet, and salty flavors that constitute a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

But don't settle for cider just yet. We've compiled some tips for which wines might offer the best holiday food and wine pairing for your festal feast or roast beast.

Let's Talk Turkey

Annual holiday turkeys may take offense at being compared to their feathered, anyday's-dinner friends, but "goes with turkey" could be the "tastes like chicken" of the wine world. Turkey itself is an easy food for wine pairings - it's the extras like stuffing and sweet potatoes that are often trickier matches. The best wines for Thanksgiving are thus well-balanced enough to get along with a plethora of tasty table partners, yet also sufficiently distinctive so their flavors don't get lost.

A helpful guideline is to pick the best wine that suits your stuffing or side dishes:

• Match sweet dishes, e.g. sweet potatoes, with a fruity wine
• Acidic dishes, e.g. cranberry sauce, go with crisp, tart, high-acid wines
• Spicy tastes draw out the alcohol in wine, so match spicier stuffings with low-tannin, low-alcohol wines

Three for Thanksgiving

Gewürztraminer (pronounced like Gah-voortz-tra-meen-ur) is a bold, full-bodied, aromatic white wine that's popular with many oenophiles as a Thanksgiving libation. The word is German for "spicy" or "perfumed" traminer, and this variety's pungency and aroma earn the appellation: its flavors and aromas are frequently compared to lychee, cloves, roses, and gardenias. Gewürztraminers can be high in sugar, California gewürzes more so than Alsatian. Try Navarro Vineyards or Gundlach Bundschu for a dry Gewürztraminer.

How do you say Happy Thanksgiving in French? Beaujolais Nouveau! Well, not literally, but this light, fruity, low-tannin, heavily marketed red has become a Thanksgiving tradition thanks to its release date: the third Thursday of November. Beaujolais Nouveau is a simple and youthful wine, a vin de primeur or first wine, going from harvest to bottle in less than two months.

Chardonnay is the most popular American wine, and a generally safe, if risk-averse, choice for holiday foods. Food brings out the oak in wine, and many chards are already more oaky and buttery than a dairy cow mooing Oklahoma!, so opt for an unoaked or light oak chardonnay with crisp, fruit-driven flavor (key phrase: stainless steel fermentation).

A Food-Centric Holiday Wine List

• Turkey's Favorite Wine: domestic, low-alcohol Pinot Noir
• A light-bodied, subtle, earthy, acidic Pinot Noir should be on every holiday table


• White Christmas: Riesling
• A fruity, acidic, sweet Riesling complements many holiday dishes, including spicy or herb-based stuffings


• Think Outside the Turkey: Cabernet Sauvignon
• If turkey is off the holiday menu, take a cab - Cabernet Sauvignon is an ideal match for ham or beef roast


• Pinot Gris, dry rose wines, or a sparkling shiraz would also make for a happy holiday food and wine pairing

Holiday Dessert Wines and Wine Alternatives

If choosing a holiday dinner wine is too daunting, a dessert wine such as an Italian moscato might be a delicious alternative. Keep three things in mind when looking for holiday dessert wines:

Dessert wine should always be sweeter than the dessert
• The darker the dessert, the darker the wine should be
• Acidic desserts, e.g. fruit desserts, are best complemented by acidic wines

As a wine alternative, some vineyards, including the aforementioned Navarro Vineyards, also offer family-friendly non-alcoholic grape juices with varietal flavors.

Finally, our best piece of holiday wine selection advice: let your wine rack do the work! Our portable wine carts make it easy for guests to PYOV - pick your own varietal - allowing everyone to find the perfect holiday food and wine pairing for their individual palate.