A Wine For Every Personality At Your Thanksgiving Table

Something for everyone — from your perpetually drunk aunt, to your only-here-to-watch-football cousin.

Written by Eliza Dumais

While purportedly about giving thanks, thanksgiving has long operated as a holiday for airing your grievances — namely in problematic, aggravated ways while gathered ‘round a dead bird. The upshot is: However volatile, awkward, or merely fatiguing your affair may be, there will be wine. And carbohydrates. And non-descript J. Crew sweaters. And probably some guy at the table who demands ONLY BIG REDS. Which is to say, say, of course, there will be plenty to celebrate.

With that in mind, we’ve selected a wine for every glorious, insufferable, exhausting, intimidating, utterly memorable character you’re bound to encounter at the Thanksgiving table. Give thanks to SWURL.

The ONLY BIG REDS guy

We’re not sure who invited this guy — but he’s around. And his taste in all matters romantic, personal, culinary, artistic, sartorial, et al, can be summed up via his stance on wine: ONLY BIG REDS. It’s unclear whether this is a personal preference or something he heard a very tall Goldman Sachs employee yell once at Keans, but either way, he’s staunch in his ways. Throw him something rich but still complex, like this Ridge Vineyards, Zinfandel Pagani Ranch from Sonoma. The stuff is a brooding, hefty answer to all the “jammy gamays” floating around — and it’s domestic, so he need not butcher any French words while drinking.  

The perpetually drunk aunt

Everyone has one, whether or not she’s actually your aunt. Hell, by the end of the night, she won’t know whose aunt she is. At least she’s fun — for, like, the first 20 minutes of the evening. Either way, you can rest assured that her palate is not exactly discerning… so you can save your wine budget for folks you’ll need to work harder to impress. This is a numbers game — we’re talking quantity over quality. So, go with a grocery store favorite — the High Life of budget wines: Decoy Sauvignon Blanc, complete with a screw-top so someone else can maintain custody of the wine key. 

The only-here-to-watch-football cousin

This guy did sit down at the dinner table, but he’s watching a football livestream on his phone under the table — so, odds are, you need not interact. He’s dressed in head-to-toe Banana Republic but he’ll probably shotgun 68 beers later tonight and puke on his khakis. He humored you by politely tasting the skin contact wine you brought to dinner (he saw it on Instagram, he says) but naturally, he’d prefer a Bud Light. Still, he can get behind a collegiate nostalgia play…like, say, boxed wine? Give him the most optimal version out there: From The Tank, Vin Blanc. 

The uptight in-laws

You’re not here to show them you have taste — you’re here to show them RESPECT. And, well, to prove that you’re financially stable enough to support their favorite spawn. Don’t bother flexing with some chic grower Champagne: Show up with good ‘ol fashioned Veuve. They like the idea of Champagne…but who knows if they even like it? Think of it like the bubbles equivalent to a sport coat. 

The holier-than-thou grandparents

They’ve got a hill to die on. Several hills. Acres worth of die-on-able hills. And no matter how sharp your wit, or how valuable your liberal arts education may be, these folks are not changing their minds. Give them Tony Coturri’s Cabernet Sauvignon Testa. They’ll hardly know it’s natural wine — and it’s got all of the silky tannins and dark fruit notes they surely associate with a bygone era of premiere table wine that your generation could never appreciate. 

The *extremely online* sibling

Quelle surprise, they're a card carrying member of Gen Z — and they've got a gift for making you feel all but ancient at the ripe old age of 30. They're Tiktok fluent, they speak in incomprehensible slang — and in spite of the fact that they're dressed in head-to-toe fast fashion, their body is a temple. So, in lieu of wine, something non alcoholic with wildly chic packaging: the Ghia spritz. Rooty enough to offer the punch of a proper drink, but tame enough to keep that liver high-functioning. 

The new-but-this-feels-promising partner

You’ve graduated from situationship territory (congrats!) but you’re not nearly comfortable enough to wear your night brace yet — which means full family Thanksgiving is basically the social experiment from hell. That said, this particular individual is eager to please — and they showed up in a tie, or whatever. So, offer them something to ease the intensity of your blood lineage gathered around a turkey carcass, requesting info about their 401K: A bottle of gamay from Vin Noe, a micro-negociant project in Burgundy. It’s high end, fun, breezy, and easy to down with a straw in the bathroom if need be.