Everyone Else Has Written about Thanksgiving Wines ...

.... so I'll add my advice: Keep it simple.

Every damn year! I mean, sheesh! We gotta, gotta write about matching wine with Thanksgiving dinner, as if the task were some sort of Holy Writ or Contractual Obligation. Which is kind of an impossible dream, given the immense diversity of the traditional meal — lots of umami, right, lots of savory but lots of sweet, loads of vegetables loaded with all sorts of toppings and spices, then the turkey and the rich gravy, and maybe a ham with maple-orange glaze, plus the fact that if you’re hosting a horde everyone tends to prefer different types of wine.

So. Don’t freak out. You have enough on your mind just getting dinner to the table. I’ll offer a few basic guidelines to make things easier for you. The main point: Keep the wine light, bright, fresh, dry and delicious.

*Nothing fancy. If you happen to be the rare person who possesses a deep wine cellar, by all means, bring out your favorite Burgundies and Bordeaux, as long as your guests appreciate them. That’s not most people, so the best course is to offer your family and guests easy-drinking, uncomplicated wines that, really, no one will pay much attention to. The meal and the gathering are the main event; the wine is just the lubricant that moves things along.

*Nothing too high in alcohol. The last thing you need is guests feeling weighed down (or too buoyed up) by the effects of alcohol. None of these 15% or 16% alcohol level zinfandels, please! Keep the alcohol content of the wines to 12.5% to 13.5% if possible.

*Nothing intellectual. You don’t want to spend an hour explaining to Uncle Bob what an orange wine is or why some wines are considered “natural” and others are not.

*A red and a white. You know how people are; some like red wine, some like white wine. Have a few bottles of each available.

*Don’t forget sparkling wine. Any form of sparkling wine feels festive and celebratory. Also, sparkling wine has the ability to bridge (or gloss over) all the contradictory elements of the Thanksgiving meal. Also, they tend to be low in alcohol. I’m not thinking Champagne here, unless you’re well-off enough to present Champagne to a whole table. Crémant d’Alsace or Crémant de Loire would serve well, or Cava from Spain or a sparkling wine from New York, Oregon or California.

*Don’t forget cider. Cider is the dark horse of American alcoholic beverages, yet dry, hard cider particularly is a versatile complement to the Thanksgiving meal — or many kinds of cuisine. If you live in an apple-rich state with a cider-making tradition, like, say, Vermont, New York or Oregon, then lucky you! If you’re pulling a six-pack or four-pack of cider from the cooler at the grocery store, look for products from Wölffer, Potter’s or Eve’s Cidery.

*Provide non-alcohol alternatives. Not everyone drinks alcoholic beverages. Be sure to stock sparkling water, seltzer or fruit drinks for the abstainers.

What’s my direction? On our sideboard will be bottles of Beaujolais-Villages or gamay noir (probably from Willamette Valley); dry rosé; dry riesling; and a bottle of what’s called “chillable red,” generally a light-hearted, quaffer like the sangiovese-based Field Recording Freddo 2024, Paso Robles, a favorite pizza and burger wine in our house (about $25).

I avoid chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir (except for a lighter pinot like the Poppy Pinot Noir 2023, Monterey County, about $15) because they can be showy, performance-oriented wines. Those are fine in other circumstances, but not for Thanksgiving dinner, where they can grab all the attention. And I never liked sauvignon blanc at this meal; it never seemed like a good fit.

Here are 10 choices and alternatives, gleaned from my reviewing over the last half of this year:

^Tatomer Wines Hinter der Mauer 2023, Central Coast. A riesling/grüner veltliner blend. About $18.

^Sabroso!!! 2024, Central Coast. A blend of grenache, cabernet Pfeffer and zinfandel. About $30

^La Buvette de Castelmaure nv, Vin de France. Grenache and carignan. About $14.

^Laurent Perrachon et Fils “Terre de Loyse” 2023, Beaujolais-Villages, France. About $17.

^Freire Lobo Vigno Branco 2023, Däu, Portugal. A blend of indigenous white grapes. About $17

^Lamoreaux Landing Cabernet Franc Rosé 2024, Finger Lakes, New York. About $18.

^Gramercy Cellars Picpoul Blanc 2023, Walla Walla, Washington. About $25.

^Cantine Povero “Il Canapo” Roero Arneis 2024, Piedmont, Italy. About $16. A congenial white wine.

^Common Thread Wines Whole Cluster Gamay Noir 2023, Santa Lucia Highlands. About $23.

^Lucy Rosé of Pinot Noir 2024, Santa Lucia Highlands. About $24.

Thanksgiving dinner image from photodune.net.