Sparkling wine goes with anything. A Cava from Spain is a bit softer than Champagne.

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. Food and football. The meal is built around turkey, but it's the side dishes, traditional to your family and friends and as varied or exotic as your friends and family, that make the meal.

Thanksgiving Day dinner offers wine lovers a unique challenge as well. You're faced with picking a wine that goes with turkey but also with tart cranberry, earthy wild rice, stuffing with nuts or sausage or giblets, sweet potatoes, creamed onions, green bean casserole ....

Here are five suggestions from local wine experts to help you solve this annual food/wine pairing puzzle.

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The combination of chocolate and red wine often sets similar qualities against one-another

​Pairing wine and food is often a puzzle, and the question of what wine goes best with chocolate seems to come up fairly often. For some, chocolate and red wine are both so delightful that any combination will be pure pleasure, but many experts claim chocolate conflicts with any wine.

Here are a few tips on how to enjoy both to the fullest:

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Haskell's

Haskell's Wine Sale on Now

​Wine shop sale week continues with the annual Haskell's Fall Sale. I hope you were able to attend the free tasting last Saturday. A lot is going on at Haskell's over the next month. Here are some of the events, plus recommendations on great wines to look for:

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Surdyk's big fall sale: Here are in-store tastings and 10 recommendations on what to buy

​When you pull into the Surdyk's lot on a Saturday afternoon during it's big sale, you'd think you were trying to find a parking spot in downtown New York. There's a reason for that: Surdyk's offers not only great deals on wine but an array of free tastings, especially on Fridays and Saturdays.

Here is a schedule of tastings you won't want to miss, plus recommendations on great bottles to buy.

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Time to load up the cart

​Each day this week we are featuring an ongoing wine shop sale and 10 recommendations from each. Today's feature is South Lyndale Liquors, a solid wine shop specializing in wines under $25. Its sale ends Saturday.

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St. Innocent

Temperance Vineyard Site

​Can you name five wine producers? Many casual wine drinkers might mention Robert Mondavi, Sutter Home, Beringer, Coppola, or Kendall Jackson. But what about Monchhof, St. Innocent, and Felsina? In the fourth of a series of Wine 101 topics (which includes terroir, vintage, and appellation), we will dive into the role of the producer.

You'll also find recommendations for five great bottles to help you explore this all-important category for buying good wine.

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The Tasting Process

​Would you like to drive a golf ball 300 yards down the fairway with effortless power or sing in front of 19,000 fans at Xcel Center? While neither is possible for most of us, we can drink wine the same way Robert Parker and the reviewers at Wine Spectator do, and it takes about three minutes to learn the process.

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Ernst Loosen

Wehlener Sonnenuhr on the Mosel River

​On a bottle of wine there is so much information, with some items being extremely important while some meet just meet legal requirements.

Over the next five Wine 101 blogs I will explain five of the most important wine concepts in the world: terroir, vintage, wine region, producer, and wine maker.

When you combine all five terms you can make amazing wines like the 2005 Chateau Petrus. But who has $5,000 to spend on a bottle of wine? There are some really good selections on the market today under $30 that incorporate all five concepts. First up, terroir:

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