your thanksgiving guide
Thanksgiving 2025
This is the time of year for festive meals with friends and family. For giving thanks and making toasts. Getting to share good food and wine with people I care about is one of my favorite things. In this Pourcast, I hope to offer you some tips when it comes to pairing wine!
With all the many disparate dishes (and guests with different preferences!), pairing wine with holiday meals can feel challenging. But we’ve got you covered. I recommend approaching it from both sides -
Select a few wines of distinctly different styles that classically pair well with holiday favorites – see my 5 tips below
Identify or add at least one element to each dish you are cooking that is similar to or complements the flavors/aromas in one of the wines
(1) Start with a sparkler.
Whether you welcome your guests with it, share a toast to kick off the meal, or set it out on the table with your appetizers. Not only are bubbles festive, but a fab pairing with salty, fried, and/or crunchy foods. Pallet cleansing, crisp and a fun textural contrast. Our Sparkling Rosé is perfect.
While there are no apples, lemons, butter, or toasted nuts in Chardonnay, nor cherry or mushrooms in Pinot Noir (just grapes!), the exact same aromatic molecules are responsible for the flavors in both the food and the wine. Thousands of them. The same Maillard reaction responsible for browning and developing delicious roasted-toasted flavors in your food happens in barrels when the coopers put the oak over fire – creating not only toasty notes, but also vanilla, clove, and more. Then those molecules make their way from the oak into the wine as it ages in barrel.
(2) Pinot Noir, of course! Almost every Thanksgiving post online tells you that Pinot Noir is a great pairing with the traditional feast. And they are right. If you only get one wine for Thanksgiving, get a Pinot. (But really, put a few wines on the table if you can!) Pinot Noir’s medium-level of body, tannin, and acid is perfect to complement but not overwhelm or overshadow the food. The complex combination of flavors that Pinot Noir is famous for -- red fruits, earthy mushrooms, dried herbs, and baking spices -- also shows up all over traditional Thanksgiving dishes. Cranberry sauce, dried cherries or pomegranate seeds in a salad; mushrooms in stuffing, gravy or casseroles; rosemary, sage, and thyme on a turkey; cloves or cinnamon on sweet potatoes. So many points of alignment.
We make a range of PN’s out of our estate fruit – whether you are looking for a light fruit- forward wine like Le Petit; a more iconic and structured balance of fruit and spice like the Estate; a richer, earther bottle like the Regina; or an elegant bottle with aged complexity like the Beehive or Cuveé Alexandrine… we’ve got it for your feast. The acidity is so food-friendly.
(3) A high-acid, aromatic white.
Each sip makes your mouth water, and continues with a long, focused finish, getting you ready for the next bite. Gewürztraminer. A fun surprise for your guests. Its notes of spice, ginger, flowers, and lychee make it a charmer to swirl and sniff, and a great match with parsnips (add a little nutmeg!), stuffed squash and sweet potatoes (try some ginger or orange), stuffing, or duck if you’ve got it.
The 2024 is dry, and earlier vintages are off-dry. Riesling. A classic. Riesling pairs well with so. many. things. From salad to umami-rich vegetable sides, to delicate seafood, to spicy offerings, Riesling is a joy as you alternate sips and bites. Our Van Horn is dry and mineral with lemon and tropical notes; and our Pioneer Block is off-dry with lovely florals and citrus.
(4) A richer, weightier white. The richer body and texture of our barrel-fermented whites is perfect for fall and winter. Smooth and round from their time on lees (and partial malo-lactic fermentation on the Chardonnay), with just the right amount of lively balancing acidity. Consider our Lynette Chardonnay, Gorge Chardonnay, or Estate Reserve Pinot Gris. These wines compliment many types of cheese (mmm, mac and cheese), roasted turkey, creamy mashed potatoes or latkes, seafood, risotto, almost anything in a butterysauce... and of course dishes with apple, pear, or fennel are natural friends.
(5) Don’t Forget Dessert. Sharing a dessert wine with guests makes it extra special –most of us rarely drink them, but they are a delightful treat, and so concentrated that each person only needs a small pour, so a 375ml bottle goes further than you’d think. Our Vin Glace will shine next to a range of desserts, and help you savor every bit – from apple pie, to cheesecake, pineapple upside down cake, pumpkin pie, or even a cheese plate.
Cheers!
I wish all of you the best of meals with friends and family. I hope our Phelps Creek Vineyards wines can make them even more special, and become part of your traditions.
Winemaker, Lauren O’Brien