I'm excited to cook and eat two Thanksgiving dinners this year, one "pre-Thanksgiving" meal tomorrow here in DC with friends and then another on the holiday itself with family up in PA.  My brother's been a professional wine buyer, seller, importer and drinker for many years, so I asked him for some recommendations of wines to pair with a traditional thanksgiving dinner.  The following are his suggestions.

Dry Whites

You might want to kick off the holiday season with champagne or, perhaps, a California sparkling wine.  My brother recommends a sparkling wine from Roederer Estate in California's Anderson Valley.  The Roederer Estate Brut sparkling wine sells for about $20-$25 a bottle.  (There's a less expensive bubbly recommendation below.)

Another dry write option would be a viognier.  Viognier might be the best style of wine being made in Virginia.  Virginia viogniers are easy to find in the DC area.  One of my favorites is the Prince Michel Ivy Creek Farm 2004 Viognier, but it's on the expensive side (about $25 a bottle) and would probably be tough to find.  But there are many less expensive decent viogniers from many regions available for purchase throught the U.S.

Sweet / Off-Dry Whites

The sweet / off-dry category offers many options that go well with traditional Thanksgiving fare.  I'll be making a butternut squash lobster bisque tomorrow for a starter course and my bother has recommended an Alsatian riesling.  Alsace is in the northeast corner of France and borders on Germany.  Alsatian rieslings usually are drier than their cousins to the north in Germany (though a German "trocken" riesling is a dry riesling), and Alsatian rieslings often have a minerally aroma that the Alsatian soil is known for producing.  If you prefer a sweeter wine, look for a German riesling (other than a trocken riesling).

Another great off-dry option is the Italian bubbly, fruity prosecco.  You can get a bottle for under $10, so it's a nice lower-price alternative to champagne or California sparkling wine.  As an aside, the host of my pre-Thanksgiving dinner just bought some apple cider at the 14th and U farmers market that she's planning on serving tomorrow mixed with some sparkling booze as an aperitif.  She was thinking champagne, but I'm going to recommend the less-expensive prosecco option, since it'll be mixed with such a strong juice flavor.

One more suggested sweet white option—muscato d'asti from the Piedmont region of Italy.  It's a sweet, fairly low alcohol wine that can easily be found for under $10 a bottle.


Reds

You might be ready for red wine by the time you hit the turkey course.  On the light-to-medium body side of things, if you like pinot noir, you should check out a Beaujolais grand cru or a less expensive Beaujolais villages, from the Beaujolais region of southeast France.  The "grand cru" wines come from the best ten wine producing communities in the region and the "villages" come from other villages in the region.

The Beaujolais "grand cru" and "villages" wines should not be confused with Beaujolais "nouveau," which is far, far less consistently good than Beaujolais grand cru or villages wines.  They're both produced from the Gamay grape in the same place, but the nouveau is very young . . . the first wine released from the year's harvest . . . always released on the third Thursday of November (this week!) . . . and usually not particularly good.  Parties are held around France, and among French ex-pats and francophiles around the world, beginning at midnight in the earliest morning hours of the third Thursday in November when the nouveau is released each year (a.k.a. Wednesday night at midnight)—but these parties are more about celebrating the harvest and the culture of wine than the wine itself.

Finally, on the fuller-bodied side of red, you might try a zinfandel from California.  My brother recommends a zin from Ridge Vineyards in Northern California, whose wines he believes are world class.  Many less expensive California zinfandels can easily be found as well.

That's it.  Hopefully you've found this helpful.  Big thanks to my big brother for all of the info.  Cheers!