Written by: Eric Asimov | New York Times | November 15, 2021
Thanksgiving is the most singular meal of the year for most Americans.
It’s usually the biggest dinner party, with dishes cooked maybe once a year, often by many different people. It may also be the only day of the year when generally compartmentalized groups of family and friends blend together.
It’s no wonder we spend a lot of time thinking about how to pull it off. A week ago I wrote up our annual Thanksgiving wine tasting, which broke down exactly the sort of nimble, energetic wines that will go best with such an unusual feast.
I wanted to follow that up by recommending another dozen bottles, six whites and six reds, that would be great on the holiday table. But don’t think of them as merely Thanksgiving wines. They are so good and so versatile they are worth serving anytime.
It turns out, the characteristics that make a wine good for the unusual combination of foods and people at Thanksgiving are generally great qualities to find in wines most of the time.
As I suggested in the last piece, the crucial characteristic in a Thanksgiving wine is acidity, which, in the right proportion, gives a wine energy, lift and liveliness. It’s what makes a wine refreshing and it helps to keep you going through a long day full of heavy foods.
Did I mention these bottles are all at most $25? That’s our upward limit for the Thanksgiving wine tasting because we imagine many will have big gatherings, requiring a lot of wine at reasonable costs. I’ve stuck with those parameters for these recommendations as well.
Not that acidity and price are the only attributes worth seeking out in a wine, not by a long shot. Rich, powerful, discernibly tannic wines have their place, as do expensive, distinguished bottles.
For those sorts of wines you have to plan more carefully, especially if the wine is rare, well-aged or personally meaningful. These bottles are less versatile than those I am recommending. They require deliberate thought as to the sorts of foods and gatherings that will allow them to be at their best.
At Thanksgiving, and on most ordinary nights, we do not open those sorts of bottles. Whether at the hodgepodge feast of the holiday or the improvised nature of a Tuesday night meal, lively, refreshing wines — that’s the acidity — enhance the occasion.
Now, if your Thanksgiving gathering is a dinner party for six, then of course you can haul out the special bottles, matching each one to a particular course. But for the pastiche buffets that make up many holiday gatherings, stick with the more limber wines.
I found all 12 of these bottles in New York retail shops. Each fits the holiday criteria I’ve outlined. They have lively acidity, are largely 11 to 13.5 percent in alcohol and are not too tannic or oaky. Here they are in no particular order.
Anne and Sylvain Liotard Domaine des 13 Lunes Vin de Savoie Apremont 2020 $19
In an article in July, I called Savoie whites as refreshing as summer breezes. It turns out those breezes are pretty nice at the Thanksgiving table, too. This Apremont, made of biodynamically farmed jacquère grapes, is fresh, lively and low in alcohol at 11 percent, the sort of wine that invites another sip because it feels so good in the mouth. (Wine Traditions, Falls Church, Va.)
