Kosher Wine for Thanksgiving: What to Pour With Turkey
Thanksgiving is the hardest meal of the year to pour wine for, and it has nothing to do with the turkey. Turkey is easy. The problem is that everything arrives at once: the bird, the gravy, the cranberry sauce, the sweet potatoes with the brown sugar on top, the stuffing, the green beans, somebody's kugel. One plate holds sweet, salty, savory and sour at the same time, and most wines are built to go with one of those.
So the goal on Thanksgiving is not to find the correct wine. It is to find wines that do not fight. Here is what that means in practice, and which bottles on our shelf do it.
The three things a Thanksgiving wine needs
Medium body. A big, heavy red will roll straight over turkey, which is a lean, mild meat. Save the Cabernet for a steak and read what wine goes with steak when you do.
Low tannin. Tannin is the drying, grippy feeling on your gums. It needs fat to soften it, and turkey has very little. High-tannin wine next to white meat tastes bitter and metallic. If that word is new, what is tannin in wine explains it properly.
Real acidity, and a little sweetness is fine. Acidity resets your mouth between bites, which is exactly what a crowded plate needs. And because half the table is sweet already, an off-dry wine stops tasting sweet and starts tasting balanced.
One thing that is specific to a kosher Thanksgiving
The bird is meat, so the whole meal is meat and pareve. There is no cheese course at the end, which removes the one Thanksgiving tradition that needs a completely different wine. It also means your dessert is pareve, so a sweet wine at the end does more work than it would on a dairy table.
The other thing worth thinking about before the day: if guests are pouring for each other, or somebody is helping in the kitchen who does not keep Shabbos, you want mevushal bottles. Mevushal vs non-mevushal covers when it actually matters.
The short list
| Bottle | Style | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Barkan Classic Pinot Noir | Light red | The safe red, and the cheapest way to get this right |
| Baron Herzog Old Vine Zinfandel | Medium red | Berry fruit and pepper, made for the cranberry sauce |
| Pacifica Riesling | Off-dry white | Handles the sweet sides without surrendering to them |
| Yarden Gewürztraminer | Aromatic white | Spice and lychee against the stuffing and the squash |
| Bartenura Prosecco Brut | Sparkling | What you hand people while the bird rests |
| Herzog Lineage Pinot Noir | Light red | A step up, still soft enough for white meat |
Pinot Noir, if you only buy one red
Pinot Noir is the default Thanksgiving red everywhere in America for a good reason. It is light in color and light in tannin, it carries cherry and raspberry fruit with an earthy, mushroomy edge underneath, and that earthy note is the thing that locks it to roasted poultry and herb stuffing. It is also the one red that does not embarrass itself next to cranberry sauce.
Barkan Classic Pinot Noir is the value play. The Butcher's Daughter Pinot Noir and Herzog Lineage Pinot Noir both give you more fruit and a longer finish for a few dollars more.
If this is the year you spend properly on the red, Goose Bay Small Batch Pinot Noir and Pacifica Pinot Noir both taste like the step up they are. New Zealand and Washington State respectively, and the Goose Bay is the darker, riper of the two.
More on the grape in what is Pinot Noir, and the rest of the shelf is at our Pinot Noir collection.
Zinfandel, the American answer
If Pinot Noir is the safe pick, Zinfandel is the interesting one, and it is arguably the better match. Zinfandel is jammy and brambly, blackberry and raspberry with black pepper and a warm, slightly sweet-smelling finish. Cranberry sauce destroys most reds because it is tart and sweet at once. Zinfandel meets it head on.
Baron Herzog Old Vine Zinfandel is the one to buy first, and it is mevushal. Covenant Mensch Zinfandel is drier and more structured. Twin Suns Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel is the full-throated version, and it is the bottle to open if there is brisket on the table alongside the turkey.
What is Zinfandel goes further, including the White Zinfandel question, and the Zinfandel collection has the rest.
The whites are not an afterthought
Half your table will want white, and on this particular meal the whites may be the smarter choice. The sweet sides are what break most wines, and an off-dry white is the one thing built for them.
Riesling is the specialist. It has sharp acidity and a touch of sugar at the same time, which is a rare combination and exactly what candied sweet potatoes need. Pacifica Riesling and Koenig Riesling are both good here. If you would rather stay bone dry, Hagafen Lake County Dry Riesling is the drier end of the same grape. See what is Riesling and the Riesling collection.
Gewürztraminer is the one to open if your stuffing has real seasoning in it. It smells like lychee, rose petal and baking spice, and it is the only white that can stand up to sage, clove and cinnamon without getting lost. Yarden Gewürztraminer is the benchmark; Cape Jewel Gewürztraminer is the South African take. Browse the Gewürztraminer collection.
Chardonnay works if it is the lighter, less oaky kind. Baron Herzog Chardonnay is the easy one, and it is mevushal.
Start with bubbles
Everyone arrives at once, the turkey is not ready, and nobody wants to commit to a glass of red yet. This is what sparkling wine is for. It also happens to be the single most flexible thing on the table once the food lands, because the bubbles and the acidity cut through fat and reset the palate better than anything still.
Bartenura Prosecco Brut is the straightforward choice. Elvi Cava Brut is drier and more serious, Spanish rather than Italian. Herzog Lineage Momentus Sparkling White is the other sparkling choice. If you want to understand the differences, Moscato vs Asti vs Prosecco sorts them out, and the sparkling collection has the full range.
How much to buy
A 750ml bottle pours five glasses. Thanksgiving runs long, people sit for three or four hours, and the usual planning number is half a bottle per drinking adult, rounded up. Twelve adults at the table, assume eight of them are drinking, that is four to five bottles. Buy six.
Split it across styles rather than buying six of the same thing: two sparkling for the start, two reds and two whites. That covers every guest and every dish without anyone having to be polite about it. How many glasses in a bottle of wine has the full math, and how much wine for a simcha scales it up if you are hosting more.
Serving, quickly
Serve the reds cool, not warm. A light Pinot Noir is better at around 60 degrees than at kitchen temperature, and a kitchen on Thanksgiving is well above that. Twenty minutes in the fridge before you pour is enough. Do you refrigerate red wine covers this in more detail.
Whites and sparkling go in the fridge the night before, not an hour before. And open the reds when the guests arrive rather than when the food lands, so they have time to breathe.
If you want one of each
The simplest version of this whole article: Bartenura Prosecco Brut to start, Barkan Classic Pinot Noir and Baron Herzog Old Vine Zinfandel for the reds, Pacifica Riesling and Yarden Gewürztraminer for the whites. That is five bottles, it covers the entire table, and it comes to under $100.
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Still deciding? Wine and food pairing basics is the general version of this, and what wine goes with chicken is the closest week-to-week equivalent to a turkey dinner.
Bringing a bottle for the host? Before Thanksgiving last year the spirits our customers ordered most were Tubi 60, Yamazaki 12 and Joseph Gold Elite Arak.
In the three weeks before Thanksgiving last year, the wines our customers ordered most were 1848 Winery Generations Semi-Sweet Cabernet Sauvignon, Herzog Selection Chateneuf Rouge, Recanati Yasmin Red and Rashi Joyvin Red. Our Thanksgiving picks and last year's favorites are on one shelf: Thanksgiving wine.
