Go ahead and give yourself a hug. You’ve finalized your holiday meal menu! Now you are looking for the perfect wine to pair those delicious dishes with. Read on and discover tips and recommendations from wine experts for the perfect wine pairings for your holiday meals.
Plus, we’ve added *bonus* at the end – a DIY printable for our fun holiday wine tags to make your holiday table extra special!
What are you serving for Thanksgiving dinner?
We are not all sure what the holidays will look like this year. Maybe smaller with fewer people, but you can still go big.
One thing we know we’re going to do is to eat all our favorite holiday meals. Whether you cook up a storm or have it all catered, we want to show you some fabulous wines that will bring out all the delicious flavors.
We discovered some great tips during our most recent Instagram live. We had so much fun hanging out with wineries Daou and Honey Bubbles at our new favorite place in the whole wide world, Burbank Pavilions! Fun is actually an understatement because good food and wine is the ultimate satisfaction for us.
Our time with Daou and Honey Bubbles was extra special because we learned about fabulous wine pairing for any holiday meal, most of which were super affordable. These wines will be great with traditional dishes as well as cultural dishes and more.
If your family dinner is like ours, it has a variety of traditional dishes. We have turkey and prime rib along with several cultural flavors. Some are sweet, others are spicy but all are delicious.
Great wines for appetizers
We began our tasting with a charcuterie dish as our appetizer. Scott from Honey Bubbles paired it with their famous Honey Bubbles sparkling Moscato. A unique thing about this moscato is that it has half the sugar of a normal Moscato, but with twice the alcohol. It has an intriguing balance of sweetness and acidity providing structure and making it perfect for a charcuterie platter or light appetizer course. As Scott says, pairing Honey Bubbles and Humbolt fog cheese is like heaven.
Next, we tasted some delicious empanadas from Portos. Lindsey brought out the DAOU Pessimist. It’s a red blend that showcases blueberry, boysenberry, plum, and strawberry. It also has smoky notes of truffle and roasted coffee accompanied by accents of floral consisting of lavender and lilac. This goes great with dried apricots and cured meats.
Great wines for the main course
A holiday meal main course usually has a variety of flavors and we have several options for you to pair with it. For your turkey, Scott recommends Daniele Conterno’s Langhe Nebbiolo 2017. It has notes of black tea, dried flowers, citrus rind and earthy notes. Linsey suggested the DAOU Chardonnay whose palate is lush and silky, with mouth-filling flavors of sweet honeydew melon, mango and more.
If you are serving red meat like prime rib, you will want a big bold show-stopping wine, like DAOU Soul of a Lion. It has a deep, complex bouquet that reveals notes of cassis, black currant, licorice, incense, ripe plum, and vanilla.
Level up your cultural dishes with the perfect wine pairing.
Many Los Angelinos are making tamales for the holidays and other cultural dishes with many spices and flavors. For any meal that is spicy, you’re going to want to go with a lighter wine. The DAOU Chardonnay is a great choice because it has nice tropical notes and is going to balance out the spicy heat of the tamales and elevate the flavor profile of the tamales and the wine.
If you have a not so spicy tamale, maybe a sweet tamale, you will want to drink a wine that enhances the flavor and not compete with it. To do that, you will want to pull out the DAOU Paso Cabernet Sauvignon because of its currant, black cherry, cedar, and eucalyptus. Just pop open and enjoy!
Great wine for dessert
Now, after you’ve stuffed yourself on appetizers and main courses, there is always room for dessert. Most desserts are going to be sweet and we were looking for a wine that compliments desserts like a sweet potato pie or pecan pie. Look no further than the CARE Garnacha Nativa, an explosion of dark cherry and raspberry on the palate with hints of mocha and a smooth and luscious body.
Holiday Wine Pairing Cheat Sheet
| Course | Dish | Wine Selection |
| Appetizers | Charcuterie | Honey Bubbles – Sparkling MoscatoDAOU Sauv Blanc and Rose |
| Appetizers | Empanadas | DAOU Pessimist |
| Main Course | Turkey | Daniele Conterno’s Langhe Nebbiolo 2017 |
| Main Course | Prime Rib | DAOU Soul of a Lion |
| Main Course | Spicy Tamales | DAOU ChardonnayDAOU Paso Cabernet |
| Main Course | Sweet Tamales | DAOU Paso Cabernet |
| Sides | Stuffing | DAOU Reserve Chardonnay |
| Dessert | Sweet potato pie, Pumpkin pie, Pecan pie | CARE Garnacha Nativa 2017 |
As you can tell, we really enjoyed hanging out with Lindsey, Paula and Scotty. We recorded our affordable wine pairing for holiday meals in the wine section of the Burbank Pavilions. You can see it all on the Festively YouTube channel. We want to give a special thanks to Paula, the concierge at Pavilions who brought us all together and hosted us at the Burbank Pavilions
Be sure to check out more wine options from our great partners Daou and Honey Bubble. You can shop for them all at Pavilions in Burbank.
Add a special touch – DIY holiday wine tags
Click here to get a downloadable sheet with our fun Holiday wine tags! You can print these, cut them out, paste them on to a store-bought brown paper tag that has a hole for ribbon, then add a ribbon.
If you want to customize your own wine tags, click here to get our template in Canva where you can create your own fun sayings for your wine pairings.
