Cooking a complete Thanksgiving dinner is no small feat, but selecting the drinks is easy. With a few simple rules in mind, you can stock up on wine and spirits for the holiday effortlessly—especially if you get it all delivered to your door by ordering from FreshDirect Wines & Spirits.
Our wine experts suggest these rules of thumb when getting ready for the feast:
- Budget one 750 ml bottle of wine per adult. You can scale up or down depending on your guests’ habits, but this is a safe bet for most drinkers. If you don’t finish it all, you can always gift it or save it for another day. The one thing you don’t want is to run out of drinks before the evening is finished.
- Pick a variety of drinks. Your guests will likely each have their own preferences, plus it’s great to be able to pair wines with different courses and dishes. Make sure to get a mix of reds and whites, as well as sparkling wines or rosés if they make sense for the occasion.
- Include a few alternate options. Wine may be the traditional drink of choice for pairing with food, but you can definitely explore anything else that fits the occasion.
Now let’s take a look at this year’s recommendations from the FreshDirect Wines & Spirits team for celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday.
For The Pre-Game or Serving With Appetizers
Whether you’re looking for something to complement the cheese and hors d’oeuvres or a light and breezy beverage to sip on while you’re prepping the meal, these selections are versatile and easy to drink.
Lighter-Bodied Wines
Marco Scolaris Collio Pinot Grigio
Marco Scolaris is a top producer in the Collio region of northeast Italy, which produces some of the country’s best white wines. This pinot grigio exhibits a complex bouquet of exotic fruits, acacia flowers, and a hint of bread crust, and finishes with a refreshing touch of lemon zest.
Le Bon Gout Rosé
This blend of cinsault, grenache, syrah, and rolle grapes has everything you could want in a pink wine from the south of France. Aromatic notes of red berries and flowers and joined by ripe strawberry and white peach flavors with zesty citrus notes.
Vaux Saint Georges Gamay
This bright and fruity gamay from France’s Loire Valley has a nose with strawberry, raspberry or red cherry that once aerated, turns to ripe and jammy fruits. On the palate, this wine strikes with its lightness and suppleness, while silky smooth tannins balance.
Sparkling Wines
Santa Valentina Prosecco Extra Dry
Crafted from sun-drenched grapes grown in the hillside vineyards of Italy’s Veneto region, this prosecco is a refreshing and refined sparkling wine. It has lively aromas of citrus and ripe peach with a soft, creamy effervescence.
Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Réserve
Made with pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot from the best premier cru and grand cru sites in the Champagne region. It stands out for the finesse of its slowly rising bubbles. There are bright notes of apples and pear on the palate, followed by a distinct minerality that lingers on the finish.
For The Main Meal
The big variety of flavors found in a Thanksgiving meal call for wines that can rise to the occasion and go between savory, sweet, and vegetal.
Fruit-Forward Rosé
Amour Fou Rosé
“Amour fou” is French for “crazy love,” which is especially fitting because the makers behind it are crazy about rosé. This wine has a rose-petal pink color and sweet red fruit flavors and tangy citrus aromas, and is best shared with the ones you love.
Off-Dry White
Kung Fu Girl Riesling
This white wine from Washington state’s Columbia Valley features flavors of white stone fruit, white peach and apricot, and is focused with a very long, mineral finish.
Bold Whites
Domane Wachau Gruner Veltiner Terrassen Federspiel
Bright straw yellow in color, this Austrian wine offers enticing aromas of white pepper, tobacco, exotic fruit, mango and pineapple. The refreshing, crisp acidity pairs with the elegant, medium body and long spicy finish.
Matthiasson Napa Chardonnay
With golden delicious apples, yellow peaches, musk melon, and honey on the nose and palate, this wine’s medium acidity is balanced by pleasant fleshiness, finishing very clean with a hint of minerality.
Light, Juicy Reds
Dashe Zinfandel
A remarkably lush, drinkable zinfandel with lovely black cherry and pomegranate fruit flavors, bright acidity, and hints of licorice and cocoa powder on the finish.
Jean-Marc Lafont Morgon Côte du Py
This 100% gamay comes from 50+ year old vines on the slope of Côte du Py, considered one of the greatest vineyards in all of Beaujolais. It displays fragrant aromas of fresh raspberry and candied rose, with white pepper, allspice and blood orange notes adding complexity.
After-Dinner Drinks
Cap off your special meal with a treat like a dessert wine, port, or an amaro. Or settle into a cozy groove with a craft whiskey worth savoring.
Dessert Wines
Petit Guiraud Sauternes
This dessert wine has a lovely, well-balanced nose of candied pineapple. The palate offers delicate menthol aromas and is slightly honeyed with a pleasant tropical fruit acidity. It’s fresh and balanced with delicate, lingering flavors.
Taylor Fladgate Tawney 10 Year Old Tawny Port
A superb example of the aged tawny style. Mellow and elegant, combining delicate wood notes with rich aromas of mature fruit, it is bottled for immediate drinking.
Montenegro Amaro Italiano
A blend of 40 botanicals including sweet and bitter oranges, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, marjoram, oregano, and coriander are soaked and distilled to create a liqueur that is sweet in taste with a slightly bitter finish.
Craft Whiskies
Heritage Distilling Co. Brown Sugar Bourbon
Heritage Distilling is a highly-awarded craft distillery and a majority women-owned enterprise. Brown Sugar Bourbon is their flagship spirit. It tastes both sweet and indulgent and features strong notes of cinnamon and brown sugar that create a classic whiskey warmth.
Fort Hamilton Double Barrel Rye Whiskey
With notes of raisin, vanilla, caramel, coconut, and white pepper, this rye is equally at home neat or on the rocks as it is in a deeply authentic old fashioned or manhattan.