Bottom Line/Personal : Something every chef wants to know—what’s the best wine to serve with your Thanksgiving turkey?

Amy Dixon: Thanksgiving is so fun because you’ve got so many different flavors going on. You’ve got your stuffing…you’ve got your cranberry sauce…you’ve got your mashed potatoes, lots of butter…and your really nicely buttered and oiled turkey. So there’s a variety of things going on, and you need a wine that’s going to handle all of that with ease.

Generally speaking, for white wine, we recommend Riesling. Riesling—and everybody goes, “Oh, oh, sweet.” Well, there’s very, very good dry Riesling, and Riesling has a huge curve of styles, from bone dry, very crisp, light and clean, to super sweet, unctuous, rich. So you want to find something that’s on the dry to medium sweet range for Riesling. And it goes beautifully with all of those flavors that you’ve got going on at the table.

And then for red wine, red Zinfandel from California. It’s fruity, it has a little bit of “peppery-ness” to it. It’s lovely and easy to drink. Another one is Côtes du Rhone. Côtes du Rhone is a blend of Syrah and Grenache, generally, and it comes from the Rhone Valley in France. And that’s a lovely wine, and you can find a good Côtes du Rhone for anywhere from $10 to $15 a bottle. You don’t need to break the bank.

And then finally, Pinot Noir is the most traditional for Thanksgiving turkey, and from almost every country in the world produces good Pinot Noir. If you’re looking for good value and you’ve got a houseful, I would definitely recommend looking at Chile.

Bottom Line : Good. Great advice.

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