Thanksgiving is the ultimate wine holiday, with bottles of pinot noir and chardonnay adorning tables across the entire country. While it’s hard to refute the classics, unique, interesting, and unusual wines are easier than ever to find in the Indianapolis area. Well-stocked bottle shops across the metro area carry hundreds of new-to-you varieties and styles of wine to suit any palate, at any price point, and Thanksgiving is the perfect time to branch out and try something different. It’s a conversation starter, it’s a contribution, and it’s delicious. With the exception of the special-occasion bottle at the end of the list, all offerings were found locally for less than $30. Prices accurate as of 11/1/26
Jansz Premium Cuvée Brut (NV)
Price: $24.99
For your grandma who loves a little something fizzy
This crisp sparkling wine comes from the Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania—likely a new wine region for most. The wine is made in the traditional bottle-fermented method, just like Champagne, but at a much lower price point. This dry, tart sparkling wine cuts through the heavy gravy and buttery sides on the Thanksgiving plate, and delights from the first toast all the way through dinner.
Parajes del Valle Maceración Macabeo (2023)
Price: $20.99
For your Gen Z cousin asking if you have anything “skin contact”
Skin-contact wines (also known as orange wines) are made from white wine grapes that are treated like red wine grapes, which is to say that when they get crushed, the skins and the juice hang out together for a while—hence “skin contact.” This style of wine has skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years and can be found in natural wine bars and on restaurant wine lists nationwide. Conveniently, it’s a great style of wine to pair with Thanksgiving. This Spanish skin-contact bottle brings grip and some light, savory, nutty notes that play well with the traditional Thanksgiving plate while remaining firmly in the camp of white wine.
Kosovec Pet Nat (2025)
Price: $28.20
For your brother-in-law who is “more of a beer guy”
If you find yourself on a quest to convert beer drinkers into wine drinkers, Pétillant Naturel “pét-nats” are the way. Unlike Champagne or Prosecco, pét-nats are bottled while the wine is still going through its primary fermentation, producing a gentle, natural effervescence in the bottle more akin to a beer than a highly carbonated sparkling wine. This selection comes from Croatia, where a 50/50 blend of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes mimic the Champagne recipe with a wholly different method. With a slightly lower ABV than your typical bottle, this lively sparkling wine pairs as well with a toast of gratitude as it does with a plate of appetizers.
Viña Zorzal Garnacha (2025)
Price: $12.99
For your frugal second cousin who loves to talk about tariffs
I am a firm believer that you can get an excellent bottle of wine for under $20, and when I’m looking for value, I often turn to Spain. With its lower land and labor costs, as well as established vineyards and infrastructure, you can often find great value in everyday Spanish wines. This bottle, featuring 100% garnacha (grenache) grapes farmed organically with minimal intervention, runs at a bargain-basement price of $12.99. The resulting unoaked, young wine is medium-bodied showcasing red fruit, balanced acidity, and soft tannins. This wine is crowd-pleasing, inexpensive, and has enough backbone to stand up to roasted turkey, gravy, and your cousin’s politics.
Field Recordings Ouillé, Savagnin Blanc (2025)
Price: $25.00 (local stock sold out; online only)
Michel Tissot & Fils Côtes du Jura Savagnin Naturé (2025)
Price: $29.99
For your wine snob aunt: a small tasting!
If you have a relative who considers themselves a real knower-of-wine, hit them with a fun tasting this Thanksgiving. Savagnin, the grape featured in both bottles, is the signature white grape of Jura, a small hill-country wine region in eastern France known for specific and somewhat unorthodox winemaking. For this Thanksgiving tasting we have the same grape, same vintage, and same style, but grown 5,900 miles apart. The Tissot bottle comes from Jura, its home field, and the Field Recordings bottle comes from what the winery claims are the first savagnin vines planted in San Luis Obispo, CA. Both bottles are fresh white wines with floral and citrus notes. The biggest difference is the geography. Swirl your glass, give the wine a sniff, and see if you can really tell the difference in “terroir.”
Anne Amie PTG, Gamay Noir and Pinot Noir (2025)
Price: $26.99
For you, because sometimes it is about the label
I love it when a plan comes together, and if you want an on-theme, aesthetic label to bring to your family Thanksgiving as well as a knockout wine and a decent price point, look no further than Anne Amie PTG. PTG, short for Passetoutgrains—the traditional Burgundian blend of gamay and pinot noir—is a lively, fruity red practically begging to be served at the Thanksgiving table. It’s bright, fruity but not sweet, and the gorgeous label art will be a conversation topic throughout the day.
Ravines Cabernet Franc (2023)
Price: $26.99
For your uncle, who insists on drinking only cabernet sauvignon
We all have someone in the family who lives and dies by the “big bottle of cab.” While there are hundreds of producers making elegant wines with cabernet sauvignon, somehow the manosphere has latched onto a big, tannin-heavy, high-ABV, Napa Valley–style cabernet sauvignon as the most manly wine of them all. This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to offer something slightly different: 100% cabernet franc. Cabernet franc is a parent of the cabernet sauvignon grape (the other parent is sauvignon blanc), and it’s often used as a blending grape in famous Bordeaux-style blends. When it’s the featured grape, you end up with one of my favorites: a medium-bodied wine, full of ripe fruit, baking spices, and gentle tannins that offer familiar sights and sounds of a big cab, but more suited to the Thanksgiving plate.
For the family who loves wine
L’Arco Pario, 1.5 L (2017)
Price: $150.00
Thanksgiving is the ultimate wine holiday, so I love to splash out on a big bottle of wine at Thanksgiving. Buying a magnum (equivalent to two bottles) feels celebratory, and you can’t deny it’s fun to walk in the door with an oversized bottle of wine. This time of year, well-stocked wine shops all over town start to offer these bigger bottles, and if you can swing it, investing in a delicious special-occasion magnum of wine can make you a Thanksgiving legend. This year, I’m going for the L’Arco Pario, a blend of Italian grapes and two Italian winemaking techniques. Roughly half of the wine is made with Amarone, a style that traditionally sets the grapes out to dry for 100 days before winemaking which dehydrates the fruit and concentrates the fruit. The blend is then combined with traditionally processed red wine grapes and aged in Slavonian oak, which gently softens the tannins without adding much oak flavor. The result is a complex, layered red wine offering flavors of dried fruit and baking spices, well-balanced acidity to keep you coming back for more, and a just-right texture that pairs as perfectly with roasted Brussels sprouts as it does with sweet potatoes.
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