These are wines meant to match everything from turkey and roasts to green bean casserole, keeping things refreshing and brisk instead of sleepy for the autumn holidays.
Many of the dishes commonly prepared for Thanksgiving, and other harvest-time meals, need wines that are more light and easy-going than the rich, hefty wines for which we usually reach. In order to pair with as broad a range of dishes as possible for potluck meals, it’s better to nab fuller-bodied white wines, dark and dry pink wines, and more transparent reds. Rustic wines are often a great choice, too, instead of the super-pedigreed stuff; sweet potatoes, hearty salads, and herb-laden stuffings all are well met by country wines with a little earthiness. Leave the Napa big boys and the ‘smooth’ Brunello di Montalcino in the cabinets: those heavily-extracted, often oaky reds can exhaust the palate with alcohol and weight when you’re trying to have one, two, or three plates of turkey.
