Eat, drink and be thankful for these Turkey Day wine and beer pairings

The Thanksgiving meal is a great one for mixing. A little turkey here, a little stuffing there, a flourish of mashed potato mixed with some green bean casserole. And, hey, let’s drink our Thanksgiving wine and beer with the same freestyle spirit.

Rather than pour one red and one white, put out a selection of bottles, and let people decide what they want to try during the meal. If you can manage, put two or three wine glasses in front of each setting, so your diners can customize their pairings. One wine with the sweet potato and toasted marshmallow-topped piece of dark meat, another with the stuffing and cranberry sauce melange.

Just keep a few ideas in mind for your wines. Lean to the lighter side for the most part. Save your California chardonnays and cabernet sauvignons for another night. Opt instead for lighter whites and reds like pinot gris and pinot noir.

And, of course, sparkling wine is always welcome at dinner.

Food loves acidity in wine, and it’s especially important when you’re trying to cut through the gut-slugging richness of traditional Thanksgiving fare. Keep your acidity up and your tannins down, and bring the fruit whenever possible.

Thanksgiving is fun and lively, and your wines should reflect that.

Here are some Thanksgiving wine and beer suggestions, grouped generally by style, all from the U.S. Encourage guests to try as many as they like, and remind them to pour small, so they can sample several styles.

When they find a favorite or two, fill ’em up and clink glasses.

Bubbles

You could start with one of these sparkling wines as an aperitif or drink it through the entire meal. The Gruet Blanc de Noirs ($17) from New Mexico is a nonvintage blend of 75 percent pinot noir and 25 percent chardonnay — creamy and full of citrus, with a hint of stone fruit and bright acidity.

The Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut ($28) nonvintage sparkler is composed of 53 percent chardonnay and the rest pinot noir, offering toasty minerality, a whiff of smoke and tiny hints of lime and cherry.

Whites

For whites, Oregon pinot gris is usually a good bet.

The 2014 Willamette Valley Vineyards Pinot Gris ($16) was lively and fresh with mouthwatering acidity to bring out notes of pear and candied lime. The 2015 Raptor Ridge Pinot Gris ($20), also from Oregon, offered lime and orange zest, with subtle stone fruits, prominent minerality and zippy acidity.

For sauvignon blanc lovers, the 2015 William Hill Estate Winery North Coast Sauvignon Blanc ($17) had pineapple and other tropical notes along with a burst of citrus and minerality. The 2015 Priest Ranch Napa Valley Grenache Blanc ($22), fermented and aged in stainless steel, was bright and clean with lush melon, minerality and a suggestion of honey.

The 2014 Charles Smith Wines Kung Fu Girl Riesling ($12) is from Washington state’s Columbia Valley and offered a classic whiff of petrol followed by fresh citrus, minerality and a touch of sweetness balanced by tingling acidity.

From Orange County, Va., comes the 2014 Horton Vineyards Petit Manseng ($25), which was viscous and rich, but also bright and full of layered tropical fruits, citrus and honey.

Reds

Pinot noir is the classic Thanksgiving red, and here are two nice ones.

From California’s Santa Barbara County, the 2015 Inconceivable Pinot Noir ($25) offered jammy, ripe raspberry, strawberry and cherry notes to accompany its floral aromas and lingering finish.

The 2014 J Vineyards Russian River Valley Pinot Noir ($40), from one of the finest pinot noir regions in California, had lush raspberry and cherry along with orange zest and spice.

A Rhone-style blend of grenache, mourvedre and cinsault, the 2012 Zaca Mesa Z Cuvee ($22) from California’s Santa Ynez Valley was full of blackberry, blueberry and spice, with soft tannins. The 2013 Quivira Vineyards Grenache ($32), from Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley, offered fresh strawberry, cherry, vanilla, cloves and spice.

For a more powerful wine, try the 2014 Peachy Canyon Incredible Red ($14), a silky California zinfandel full of ripe plum and blackberry, plus a touch of vanilla and baking spices.

Another great pick is the 2014 Frei Brothers Reserve Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel ($20), which offered luscious plum, mocha, baked apple and cinnamon, with a balancing spice on the finish.

Beer

What is weighty enough to stand up to a bounty of flavors both savory and sweet, but light enough to reinvigorate the palate? What is complex enough to add a component to the meal, but simple enough not to linger with too much authority? The answer is tripel.

The classic Belgian style is bright and effervescent — most are bottle conditioned, which is key for those tight, champagnelike bubbles — and shines beside a meal.

At its best, tripel is deeply complex, with a hearty backbone of yeast, spice and fruity sweetness. However, it is faultlessly clean and finishes dry. Tripel sits higher on the alcohol spectrum — generally between 8 and 10 percent — but without being hot or boozy. No less of an expert agrees about its place on the Thanksgiving table than the Brewers Association, via its www.craftbeer.com website.

The top-suggested food pairing for tripel? Roasted turkey.

In advance of the big meal, we drank through 10 tripels and found these five favorites. In alphabetical order:

Allagash Tripel: (9 percent alcohol) This Portland, Maine, beer won a gold medal among 92 tripels at last month’s Great American Beer Festival for a clear reason. Notes of white pepper mingle with underripe strawberry and peach to evoke the fall season with lovely rusticity. The most spice-forward beer on this list, but faultlessly balanced.

Brouwerij St. Bernardus Tripel: (8 percent) The least-flashy beer on this list, but it threads the needle with notes of honey, lemon, apple and mild fig-plum-raisin. Less spice than some others here, and a touch more sweet. But it delivers in the end with a round-meets-dry finish.

Brouwerij Westmalle Trappist Tripel: (9.5 percent) The malt pops for a thicker, grainier body, balanced by strong notes of stone fruit and lesser elements of clove and banana. Weighty and boozy, but clean and balanced.

Koningshoeven Abbey La Trappe Tripel: (8 percent) Elements of stone fruit and herbal spice unfurl before leading to an essential clean and dry finish. Wonderful bubbles make this particularly strong with a meal.

Unibroue La Fin du Monde: (9 percent) An extra-bright effervescence is wrapped around a big apple-honey-cotton candy sweetness with an underpinning of savory spice and yeast.

This story was originally published November 21, 2016 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Eat, drink and be thankful for these Turkey Day wine and beer pairings."