What’s the best wine for Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Here at Sunday School HQ we celebrate Thanksgiving a bit differently. Martin is not a huge fan of the traditional Thanksgiving fare (he calls it “too sweet and mooshy”) and being a Brit there’s not much nostalgia in it for him either.

Therefore, we use this holiday to indulge and splurge in whatever food and beverage luxuries we’ve been “saving for a special occasion” or any dishes that take too much time and effort for a normal day to warrant.

I have another friend who uses this holiday to dive into one specific region—one year it’s Piedmont, Italy, the next Sichuan, China.

And, of course, there’s always the classic orphan’s hodge-podge, potluck-style Thanksgiving where the buffet could include anything from French toast casserole to chili dogs. (I have seen these two things together).

Anyway, my point is that depending on what your Thanksgiving looks like it could include an array of different food menus.

What if I told you I had a magic wand that could make one wine pair with (nearly) every single food item imaginable?

Want to know something even better? That wine exists! No hocus pocus required.

What is the best wine to pair with your Thanksgiving meal (turkey, tofurkey, beef chow fun, whatever)?

The answer—if you’ve been following along with us in our Beaujolais series, you might have guessed by now—is Gamay!

Gamay is also known as Beaujolais when it's from Beaujolais, France. Any Gamay, whether from Beaujolais or elsewhere in the world, will pair with juuuuust about anything.

And it isn’t magic, it’s actually quite scientific.

3 reasons Gamay is perfect with every food:

1) It’s low in tannin

Gamay is a red wine with low tannins (the cotton ball drying sensation, or technically called astringency). This means that it is not as aggressively astringent as a heavier red wine and so can be paired with lighter foods such as vegetables. However, it still has the tannic structure to stand up to meaty dishes. Low tannins also mean that the fruit notes are more pronounced. (See number 3 below.)

2) It’s high in acid

High acid is your food-pairing friend! Much as adding acid to food—think citrus, tomato, vinegar—brightens a dish and makes it pop, the acid in wine works in a similar way. In fact, a high-acid wine is often better paired with food than on its own. Acidity also preps and refreshes your palate—in other words, it helps you keep eating!

3) It’s fruit forward

Gamay is a fruit forward wine, partially because that’s the way it’s built but also because it has low tannin levels (see point 1 above). That fruitiness will complement dishes with a sweeter edge, such as cranberry sauce, dried fruit, balsamic, candied yams and, yes, even French toast casserole. This provides Gamay with even greater pairing versatility than almost any other other dry red wine.

And the final reason why Gamay should be your Thanksgiving wine go to…

4) It's fun, inexpensive, easy to drink and everyone loves it

Ok, this makes it four reasons. But for realz though. It will please everybody.

It has earthiness for the French-loving wine drinkers and fruitiness for the Californian crowd. It’s light enough (and chillable enough!) to please white wine adherents, yet it’s structured enough to please red-wine devotees. And yeah, rosé fans dig it too. I guess you could call it the Goldilocks wine.

Happy holidays friends!

What Gamay/Beaujolais will you be drinking this week? Let us know in the comments!