8 PLCB-stocked wines to pair with Thanksgiving dinner, from turkey to pie

As a local wine author and former sommelier who has designed wine lists for some of Philadelphia’s top restaurants, from past glories like Striped Bass to current classics like Parc, I get more questions about what to serve at Thanksgiving than for any other occasion.

Why? Many people have experienced unpleasant pairings with their favorite wines at Thanksgiving, mainly because so many of the traditional recipes have high sugar levels that leave normal dry wines tasting thin, sour, and brittle.

Thanks to a quirk of sensory science, tasting any wine alongside sugary foods will make it taste considerably drier and more acidic than it does alone, and in a way that can set your teeth on edge.

Luckily, there’s a simple solution: Fight fire with fire. Pairing a sweet wine with sugary food will not make either the wine or the food taste sweeter. Instead, both will taste less sweet together than they did apart, in a harmonious and crowd-pleasing fashion.

To pair like a pro for a Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving feast, your best bet is to match the wine’s sweetness to the average sugar level found in the foods being served, which often means serving sweeter wines than you normally would.

As an added benefit, sweeter wines appeal to those guests who may not be regular wine drinkers, from your beer-drinking nephew in grad school to Aunt Hattie from Harrisburg who may only have one or two glasses of wine per year.

All of the wines listed here are regularly stocked in most of Pennsylvania’s Fine Wine and Good Spirits stores and available for $25 or less.

If you’re skipping the most sugary recipes this year and focusing on the savory classics — roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole — simply choose midweight wines that are flexible with food and favor fall flavors, but avoid those that are bone dry or highly acidic.

Premium Italian pinot grigio: Pinot grigios of any stripe partner well with subtle foods like roasted turkey, but when you’re making all the fixings, it’s worth trading up to a superior bottling. Here, longer hang time on the vine gives the fruit a luscious peachy flavor that will flatter almost everything on your holiday spread in a wine that’s still light enough to crack at noon while you’re cooking. Bottega Vinaia Trentino Pinot Grigio | $18

Barrel-fermented California chardonnay: Even if you aren’t a fan of oaked California chardonnay, Thanksgiving is where these wines shine. Their caramel apple and vanilla flavor profile is too heavy to flatter summer salads, but autumn’s richer cooked foods put them in their happy place. Skip entry-level bottlings to avoid lighter unoaked and semi-oaked versions. Better chardonnays, like this single vineyard cuvée, are almost always 100% barrel fermented. Wente “Riva Ranch Vineyard” Arroyo Seco Chardonnay | $22

Oregon pinot noir: Red wines are the trickiest to choose for Thanksgiving, and your best bet is to opt for a domestic pinot noir that is fruity and lightweight, like this reliable brand from Oregon. This style’s raspberry and strawberry flavors and soft mouthfeel sidestep the problems bigger, bolder reds face in pairing with white meats. Better still, they have the broad appeal needed for multigenerational meals. A to Z Oregon Pinot Noir | $24

When you’re whipping up your family’s classic sugary holiday recipes — sweet potato casserole, honey-baked ham, glazed carrots, cranberry sauce — choose “off-dry” wines that taste lightly sweet on their own. Rest assured that they will taste drier once dinner is served.

Italian prosecco: Sparkling wine famously goes with everything, and prosecco’s light kiss of sweetness makes that doubly true with sweeter Thanksgiving dishes. This one is brilliantly balanced in its fresh pear-like flavors, with a more graceful texture than most in its class. I recommend it often as Pennsylvania’s best value in accessible prosecco and have placed it on many a swanky wine list. Lunetta Prosecco | $16

German riesling: Few Americans shop the German wine aisle, but if you aim to serve only one wine at Thanksgiving, trust my decades of experience and seek out this bracing beauty. Few rieslings can rival the remarkable sweet-tart green appley poignancy found routinely in the Mosel Valley. The hard part is finding one you can afford that is neither too sweet nor too dry, but look no further. Clean Slate Mosel Riesling | $14

California zinfandel blend: You might be suspicious of mass-market wines, but this dark, velvety fruit-bomb is wildly popular because it tastes terrific, like a warm slice of blueberry pie. Since it’s much sweeter than normal reds, it can handle the sugar assault of Nana’s sweet potato-marshmallow casserole at a price where you won’t feel like you’re wasting the good stuff on the in-laws. Apothic Original California Red Blend | $15

When you want to keep conversation flowing after dinner with pie, consider pouring a liqueur-like fortified wine whose sweetness level matches that of your desserts.

Spanish cream sherry: Dark sherries are unusual wines made from green grapes where a white base wine is first aged, then sweetened with a raisin syrup. Their unusual degree of caramelized complexity and long finish make them great after dinner sippers with a rum-raisin taste that you’ll be tempted to drizzle over ice cream. Harvey’s “Bristol Cream” Sherry | $18

Portuguese late bottled vintage porto: The best values to be found in port wines are often in this “late bottled vintage” style known in the trade as LBV. This wine has a decadent chocolate-covered black cherry flavor that’s perfect for pairing with pies, but also suitable for sipping on into the evening over board games with the extended family. Taylor Fladgate “Late Bottled Vintage” Porto | $23