Your Best Value Wines for Thanksgiving

When thinking about the wines you'd like to choose for Thanksgiving dinner, there are a few conflicting thoughts. First, unlike the simplicity of pairing a clean white wine with fish dinner, or a muscular red with steak, you're often dealing with turkey as a focus. And turkey - sort of like salmon - falls in that gustatory category somewhere smack between fish and steak. Not the easiest wine place to be.

Then, add to that, the fact that, if you're thinking about good VALUE wines to use for Thanksgiving, that you may well have guests to consider too. And, with guests, you likely are not hunting for something at the lowest rung of the commercial spectrum.

So with those double challenges in mind, let's look for what wines might make sense for Thanksgiving, that can still bring excellent value to your purchase.

To begin, let's talk a bit about "value". For us at Spirit of Wine, value starts with a simple comparison: what is the quality - or rating - of a wine, and what is its price point. For both of these questions, we have simple metrics: one, two, three, four or five stars for quality (sometimes with a plus), and one-through-five dollar signs for price.

With these simple ratings in place for nearly a thousand wines, the question of "value" becomes a simple - almost mechanical - one. When the rating of a wine (its number of stars) exceeds the price of a wine (its number of dollar signs) by two or more, it is a great value. (Although we won't focus on these wines here, when a wine's rating exceeds its price by one dollar sign with a plus, we consider that a "good value", though not "great".)

So, that covers value. Now let's think about the type of wine that can work with Thanksgiving dinner. Well, since turkey falls in some ways between steak and fish, some folks suggest rose wines. That's not a bad idea in concept.

The other thing to keep in mind, though, is that it is often the topping, dressing or sauce - and not the meat or fish itself - that should most closely paired with the wine. With that in mind, a thin "au juice" sort of dressing for the turkey may suggest a lighter, brigher wine - perhaps a bold white or a pinot noir; while a dense, sweet, giblet-laden gravy may suggest a richer pairing - perhaps a Rhone blend or even an Aussie shiraz, to cut the sweetness of the gravy.

With all these considerations in mind, here are a few best value wines to consider for Thanksgiving, based on Spirit of Wine reviews:

***+ $ Domaine de la Chesnay Cotes du Rhone, 2007, France - Review and Rating
Find Domaine de la Chesnay at WineZap.

**** $ Cerejeiras Tinto (Red Wine), 2007, Vinho Regional Estremadura, Portugal - Review and Rating
Find Cerejeiras at WineZap.

***+ $ Patrick Lesec Bouquet Cotes du Rhone, 2005, France - Wine Review and Rating
Find Lesec Bouquet Cotes du Rhone at WineZap.

***+ $ Mazzone Immensus Malvasia, 2007, Puglia, Italy - Wine Review and Rating
Find Immensus at WineZap.

***+ $ Dr. Loosen Bros. Riesling, 2008, Mosel, Germany
Find Dr. Loosen Riesling at WineZap.

*** $ Indomita Cantus Pinot Noir, 2007, Casablanca Valley, Chile - Wine Review and Rating
Find Cantus Pinot Noir at WineZap.