With Thanksgiving just around the corner, many of my retail customers are looking for advice on what kind of wine goes best with a traditional turkey dinner.

As I’ve said oftentimes in this column, there are no longer any ironclad rules about matching certain foods with red or white wines. The old guideline about serving white wine with fish and poultry and red wine with meat was more accurate years ago, when white wines were all pretty much light and fruity and red wines were mostly tannic and weighty. But today, with all of the varieties and blends of wine available, such a strict adherence to color-coding can actually do a disservice by limiting your possibilities.

You can make a better choice by focusing on a wine’s flavor and weight. Hearty food should be balanced by a heavier-weight wine, because a light wine would quickly become inconsequential. With lighter food, however, you have more leeway in your wine pairings.

For poultry, a wine that is on the lighter side is in order. A white wine such as a sauvignon blanc or a pinot grigio works especially well. Sauvignon blanc’s most recognizable characteristic is its piercing aroma, typically described as grassy, herbaceous, musky, or tasting of green fruits. Pinot grigio, on the other hand, is a gently spiced wine that contains more substance and complexity than most other whites.

While many white wine drinkers prefer chardonnay, the often heavy oakiness of this wine can be too overpowering for turkey. If you want to serve a chardonnay, choose one that is described as being creamy or smooth with vanilla notes.

Of course, a light wine does not necessarily have to be a white. A lighter bodied red such as a merlot complements poultry quite nicely. Merlot wines can range from those that taste plummy to ones that are slightly sweeter and more ‘fruitcake-like." Whatever type you choose, this popular wine offers a more gentle variation of a cabernet sauvignon.

If you’re not sure about either red or white, a traditional rose makes an effective compromise. There are numerous California roses that are excellent, and several French ones that offer good taste and affordability.

For those serving a big crowd, here are some recommendations for Thanksgiving wines that are easy on both the palate and the wallet: 2003 Frog’s Leap Sauvignon Blanc from California, 2002 Rutherford Ranch Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley, Selaks Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2003 from Australia, 2003 ForestVille Merlot from California, and 2003 Redwood Creek Merlot from California.