Best Holiday Wine—What To Drink During the Holidays

For many, a meal shared with friends and family is the highlight of the holidays—a perfectly cooked centerpiece, creamy mashed potatoes, buttery vegetables, homemade stuffing and all the gravy you could wish for.

Getting everything right, especially the wine, feels essential as it’s the festive season. With the right wine to pair with your holiday meal, you can take it to the next level and impress friends and family.

But how do you choose the right wine for your holiday dinner—does red or white wine go with turkey? What about dessert wines? Can you serve Champagne with a holiday meal? What wines should you serve with vegetarian food options?

We have the answers to all your questions—read on to discover the best wines to pair with whatever you’re serving up on your holiday table and aim for the perfect ‘chef’s kiss’ experience.

The Best Sparkling Wines for the Holidays

The holidays are a time for celebration, which means one thing: sparkling wine! But don’t worry if your budget doesn’t quite stretch to French Champagne; there are high-quality, affordable sparkling wines that make perfect alternatives.

Several French wine regions produce sparkling wines known as Crémant. Made in the same way as Champagne, these more affordable wines have a creamy texture and delicious toasty notes—though it’s worth noting that Crémant’s flavor profile varies widely depending on the region it comes from and the grapes that are used. Look out for Crémant de Loire, Crémant de Bourgogne and Crémant de Limoux—these are some of the best.

Prosecco is another party favorite, especially during the festive season. An Italian spumante sparkling wine, Prosecco is light, bright and budget-friendly. It has lively bubbles and bursts with fruity notes of green apple, pear and melon. It’s perfect for serving as an aperitif as guests arrive or with canapés and light appetizers.

Shop our exclusive range of sparkling wines, perfect for the festive season.

Best Food and Wine Pairings for the Holidays

Appetizers

Appetizers should whet your guests’ appetite before the following courses, so you’ll want an equally exciting wine.

Much, of course, will depend on the appetizers you are serving.

A sparkling wine such as Champagne, Crémant or Prosecco works well with seafood appetizers. Crisp Sauvignon Blancs, especially those from France’s Loire Valley (like Sancerre), cut through the oiliness of smoked salmon and the richness of a pastry-baked brie.

You could also serve up a citrusy Chardonnay if you are looking for a wine you can enjoy throughout your holiday meal. For an excellent pairing with light seafood appetizers, select a crisp, unoaked style like a Chablis or an unoaked California Chardonnay to avoid overpowering the food.

We’d suggest the Californian DeLoach Private Collection Chardonnay 2020 for its refreshing, crisp character.

Entrées

Turkey

A roast turkey is an impressive sight when taking pride of place in the middle of the holiday table. Because turkey has white meat, you might assume that white wine is the only style of wine to pair with it. But that’s not necessarily true—lighter red wines also make delicious partners to this holiday favorite.

If you want to serve white wine, you’ll need one with a full body and complementary buttery flavors to make all that basting worth it. An oaked Chardonnay is a good choice. As the wine ages in oak barrels, it becomes richer and more full-bodied, developing creamy, buttery flavors.

RedHeads’ fresh and creamy Harmonie Rox Coonawarra Chardonnay is a good go-to this holiday season.

When it comes to red wine, red Burgundy is a great pairing with turkey, but a Pinot Noir from elsewhere can be as delightful (and usually more affordable). Check out New Zealand, Chile or California for ripe Pinot Noirs packed with red berry flavors that harmonize beautifully with turkey (especially when served with cranberry sauce!) and are robust enough to complement all the flavors of a holiday feast.

Réserve de Luch Pinot Noir 2021 from France is a good option, with its silky tannins, ripe raspberry and cherry flavors plus subtle hints of spice.

Nothing beats a glass of bright, fruity Cru Beaujolais (which is made from the Gamay grape) when it comes to leftover turkey. Its lively, fruity flavors make it an effortlessly enjoyable choice.

Beef

Beef is a popular holiday dinner centerpiece. Whether cooking prime rib or beef tenderloin this year, you’ll need a wine with big flavors. Classic matches include Rhône blends like prestigious Châteauneuf-du-Pape or a bold Bordeaux red blend, but beef can be served up with almost any full-bodied red wine—so you can also choose a jammy Australian Syrah or silky Argentinian Malbec.

Try Lobo e Falcão Reserva 2020, a smooth, spicy Syrah-based red blend from Portugal.

Ham

Ham is an American holiday staple, delicious when served warm on the day and in cold-cut sandwiches for the rest of the week. It’s all about the glaze when pairing a wine with your holiday ham.

You’ll want a wine with enough body and acidity to stand up to a thick slice of ham, but the glaze’s flavors are the most important to consider. If you’ve opted for a sweet, fruity glaze with hints of orange, an equally fruity red like a Rhône GSM blend (Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre) is an excellent fit. But if you’ve selected a mustard-based glaze with a fiery kick, you’ll want a red wine that can handle the heat—a medium-to-full-bodied Zinfandel is your answer.

We’d suggest the dark and velvety Berry and Spice Zinfandel 2020.

You could also pair your holiday ham with a white wine, especially when served cold the next day. An aromatic Viognier or off-dry Chenin Blanc would complement the ham while matching the sweetness of a glaze.

Bees Knees Chenin Blanc Viognier 2022 is one of our favorites. It’s a zesty white blend with hints of ripe, juicy fruits and orange blossom.

Vegetarian Options

For some, meat isn’t an option for the holiday table. A nut roast is a popular alternative—filling, savory and hearty. A full-bodied, rich red like Cabernet Sauvignon is an excellent option, but so is a French Syrah from Côte-Rôtie, with its warming, complementary flavors of black pepper and bramble berries—though it’s important to note that these wines can be quite powerful and may overpower more delicate vegetarian dishes.

Head Down Under if you want a vegan wine to serve with a vegan meal. There’s plenty of choice from RedHeads, a sustainable winery in South Australia that focuses on creating premium, small-batch, vegan wines from locally sourced grapes.

One of our favorites is The Red Sedan, a velvety Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend packed with juicy red berry flavors plus a hint of toasted spices.

Dessert

When pairing wine with desserts, remember to match sweetness and intensity. Sweet desserts demand sweet wines; the sweeter they are, the sweeter the wine should be.

Popular holiday desserts include gooey chocolate cake, sugar-dusted snowball cookies and vanilla cheesecake. Fortified wines like Tawny Port, with their intense sweetness and rich caramel flavors, would perfectly pair with an indulgent chocolate cake.

But if you’ve selected a lighter, dairy-based dessert like a vanilla cheesecake, opt for a late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc with a fresh acidity and sweet tropical fruit flavors to cut through the creaminess and lift the vanilla.

Alternatively, serve a classic French dessert wine like Sauternes. The beauty of Sauternes is it also makes a heavenly match with strong-flavored cheeses. We love L’Épiphanie de Sauternes 2019.

Discover more with our guide on the best ways to pair wine and dessert.

Cheeseboards

Wine and cheese are natural bedfellows, and we could write an article on the best wines to serve with cheese. In fact, we have. Take a look at our Cheese and Wine Pairings Guide.

A good cheeseboard should have a selection of different types and styles of cheese, including hard, soft, mild, pungent, goat and cow’s milk, along with complementary crackers, bread, dried fruits, honey and nuts. When finding the right wine to pair, focus on matching flavor intensity—match strong cheeses with full-bodied reds and more delicately flavored cheeses with lighter-bodied reds and whites.

The traditional holiday wine and cheese pairing is blue cheese and Port (a fortified wine from Portugal). Its rich, dried fruit and dark chocolate flavors pair perfectly with strong blue cheeses like Stilton.

Try the Touriga Nacional-based Baronesa de Vilar LBV Port 2017 for an opulent end to your holiday meal.

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Best Holiday Wine—What To Drink During the Holidays

The Best Sparkling Wines for the Holidays