Up your holiday wine game with 9 perfect picks for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve

There’s nothing more festive than that pop of Champagne and a resounding clink of glasses to ring in the holiday season.

But with Thanksgiving just days ahead and Christmas and New Year’s festivities looming, choosing wines for the steady succession of holidays can be a bit stressful too. While it’s comforting to have reliable favorites on hand, the holidays are an opportune time to experiment and introduce unusual, soulful and delicious wines to friends and family.

Chicago sommeliers are here to help, offering their expertise for the season, with best bottles for each holiday below.

For adherents of wine pairing principles, the classic Thanksgiving meal — that heaping plate of roast turkey and gravy juxtaposed with marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, oyster stuffing, cranberry sauce and Brussels sprouts — can be a veritable horror show of contrasting flavors.

Rather than dissecting specific flavor profiles to tease out narrow pairings, however, Thanksgiving can be an exciting platform to mix and match a broad spectrum of wines both classic and untraditional.

Tried and true favorites for Thanksgiving are lighter bodied, unoaked white and red wines with a firm backbone of acidity and juicy fruit flavors that revitalize the palate — zippy whites like riesling, sauvignon blanc or chenin blanc, or bright, delicately tannic reds like gamay or pinot noir.

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But taking a different approach, Oscar Salinas, co-owner of Los Naturales, the weekend-only wine shop at the Pilsen bar Caminos de Michoacán, suggests choosing wines to fit certain moods. As guests arrive for the festivities, Salinas sets a buoyant, welcoming atmosphere by “walking around pouring a magnum of pet-nat (a double-sized bottle of pétillant naturel, the delicately fizzy wines made via a rustic method). “They’re just these light, fun wines,” Salinas says, “almost like drinking seltzer water with Aperol — you don’t have to think about drinking it or analyze what it tastes like.”

Sommelier Derrick Westbrook, co-owner of Juice@1340, the West Loop wine store, and wine director at Bronzeville Winery, is known along loved ones for the wide selection of wines — often six to twelve bottles at a time — he brings for Thanksgiving with friends each year.

Inevitably, he says of his dining companions, “we all don’t drink the same stuff.” It’s important to bring wines you know you’ll enjoy personally, while also offering wines of variety and approachability for friends and family to sample and enjoy, Westbrook explains.

For Thanksgiving, Westbrook typically starts off with sparkling wines, but as the meal progresses, “I love introducing orange wines,” he says, describing the ancient style of white wines made by macerating crushed white grapes on their skins until the juice turns amber in hue.

With a pronounced richness and complexity of flavors as well as a bracing edge of tannins, orange wines can bridge the gap between white and red wines and pair remarkably well with the classic hodgepodge of Thanksgiving flavors. Regions like Georgia — “the country, not the state,” he cautions — as well as Italy and Slovenia all produce “beautiful, really fun skin-contact wines,” he says, but there are remarkably affordable options stateside as well.

Christmas traditions are delightfully unique in nearly every American household. For Salinas, a Mexican-American Christmas starts with piles of tamales handmade by his mother and grandmother, followed by a raucous evening with family sipping small-production, artisanal tequila. Westbrook flies home to Tennessee each Christmas to enjoy long evenings on the porch with family, sharing conversation over cognac, Armagnac and cigars.

Regardless of one’s Christmas routines, cozy winter evenings spent with friends and family beg for the warming comforts of a statement red wine — something a bit bold and a bit special. Wines from Napa, Burgundy or Barolo are ever-popular choices, particularly for those with ample budgets. But many classic wine regions like Bordeaux, Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Rioja can be a treasure trove of high-value wines that far outperform their price points.

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Salinas looks especially to cabernet franc from the Loire region of France. One that he saves for special occasions is Domaine Bobinet’s Échalier from Saumur, “a luscious, velvety red,” he says. It’s such an elegant, sexy wine that “drinking it is like wearing a black tuxedo without the fuss of a black-tie gala,” he says.

Westbrook loves the idea of “celebrating Black female winemakers” this Christmas with red wines from Theopolis Vineyards in Anderson Valley or Aslina Wines in South Africa, two producers featured currently at Bronzeville Winery.

For those looking to celebrate big this New Year’s Eve, Westbrook suggests splurging on a single-vintage Champagne. Unlike most Champagne that are made nonvintage using a blend of wines from multiple years or harvests, single-vintage Champagne are made only in special vintages, he explains.

“There’s something romantic about drinking in a moment that was so great it needed to be encapsulated in time,” Westbrook says, “and then celebrating that while we recognize the changing of time too.”

If the premium prices of Champagne are off-putting, Michael Seward, wine director at Pops for Champagne, the River North wine bar advises consumers to “look to the smaller producers in Champagne to find impressive wines at a cost friendly margin.” “Staying out of grand-cru or premier-cru regions also affords the consumer a better price,” he says.

Even more accessible, suggests Seward, are the wide range of crémant, sparkling wines made in the same traditional method as Champagne, but in regions throughout France like Burgundy, Alsace, the Loire and more.

Crémant, along with other sparkling options like cava, prosecco, lambrusco and its kin, are all fantastic options for those who’ve never understood the appeal of Champagne.

For many people, says Salinas, “Champagne can get a little boring — it’s very effervescent, it’s kind of dry, but it all kind of tastes the same.”

“I enjoy celebrating with bubbles, but New Year’s is also a time to get experimental,” Salinas says. “With a Crémant du Jura, for example, you get a representation of the Jura as a region; (the grape varieties they use, and the flavors and aromas of the wines) are very distinct.”

Jean-Pierre Robinot 2019 L’Opera des Vins Les Années Folles Pétillant Naturel Rosé Vin de France: This biodynamically grown blend of chenin blanc and pineau d’aunis “is our go-to bubbles for the festive season” produced by a “natural wine OG,” Salinas says. Los Naturales, 1659 W. Cullerton St., 312-702-2905, losnaturales.com

Field Recordings BOXÍE Central Coast: An orange wine from a white blend dominated by chardonnay and pinot gris, this 3-liter box wine is Westbrook’s “dirty little secret.” “When I’m going to a party, I love bringing a really fire box wine, because it debunks our understanding of what a box wine is,” Westbrook says. $36. Binny’s, locations vary; binnys.com

Domaine du Pavillon de Chavannes Côte de Brouilly Cuvée des Ambassades: A fantastic bargain if you can find it, this perfumed Beaujolais — a Thanksgiving classic — epitomizes gamay’s delicate, floral essence and smoky minerality along with a piercing core of red fruit. $20. Binny’s, locations vary; binnys.com

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Domaine Bobinet 2016 Échalier Saumur: “Black tie but playful” in mood, Salinas describes this Loire Valley red as “a sexy expression of cabernet franc.” $52. Los Naturales, 1659 W. Cullerton St., 312-702-2905, losnaturales.com

Aslina 2019 Umsasane Red Blend Western Cape: This wine is a rich blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and petit verdot, made by Ntsiki Biyela, one of South Africa’s iconic female winemakers. $40. 57th Street Wines, 1448 E. 57th St., 773-966-4883, wines57.com

Brotte Domaine Barville 2018 Châteauneuf-du-Pape: Barville is the historic family domaine of the Brotte empire and brightly cherried yet rich, succulent Grenache blend offers all the opulence and spice of Châteauneuf-du-Pape at an excellent quality-price-ratio. $50. The House of Glunz, 1206 N. Wells St., 312-642-3000, thehouseofglunz.com

Bénédicte et Stéphane Tissot NV Indigène Extra Brut Crémant du Jura: The addition of poulsard and trousseau, Jura’s most quintessential red grapes, to chardonnay and pinot noir lend a richness and complexity to this biodynamically grown traditional-method sparkling. $42. Verve Wine, 2349 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-904-8536, chi.vervewine.com

Gaston Chiquet 2010 Or Premier Cru Brut Champagne: A solid value for a premier-cru, vintage Champagne from a “grower” Champagne producer (one who grows and vinifies their own grapes rather than a cooperative or Champagne house that sources grapes from other growers.) $70. Perman Wine Selections, 1167 N. Howe St., 312-255-8990, permanwine.com

Rene Geoffroy NV Rosé de Saignée Premier Cru Brut Champagne: “Rosé Champagne is always a treat … (and) some single vineyard saginée wines are almost like drinking great red Burgundies with bubbles,” Seward says. While not a single-vineyard bottling, the Geoffroy is sourced entirely from the premier-cru village of Cumières. $70. Binny’s, locations vary; binnys.com

Anna Lee Iijima is a freelance writer.