There is no one perfect wine for Thanksgiving dinner. After all, even a cursory search of suggestions from a handful of America's wine writers reveals picks from Pinot Grigio to Picpoul, from Chardonnay to Grüner Veltliner and from Sekt to Shiraz. Not to mention Mead.

The problem is that the meal itself is so varied at different homes, from goose to tofu turkey, that it's impossible to pinpoint one kind of wine that would be perfect with everything. Not only that, but tradition is important, too. When John was growing up, Thanksgiving was one of three nights all year when there was wine in the house (Passover and New Year's Eve were the other two).

For Thanksgiving, his father always bought a bottle of Korbel sparkling wine, opened it with great flourish and poured a little for everyone into beautiful Champagne glasses. If we could celebrate one more Thanksgiving with John's parents, there is not a wine on earth that could be more perfect than Korbel.

For our own Thanksgiving dinner, we think the perfect wine is a fine American Cabernet Sauvignon with some age on it. We feel it has the stature to stand up to the occasion and the tastes to stand up to the meal. But we also think it's perfect because that's what we've always done. Carefully going through our cache of old Cabs, remembering why each one is special to us as we make our choice, is one of the joys of our Thanksgiving preparations.

We do, generally, feel that Thanksgiving is a time for American wine and that red wine is more appropriate to the season and the feast. (For a white, American Pinot Gris is a good choice.) But we also realize that our Cabernet advice has some drawbacks: Most people don't have older Cabernet in the house; it's hard to find, expensive and can be risky; and younger Cabernets, at any price, have not done well in our recent tastings and are not high on our recommended list.

So, what to do? This year, go with an American Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir, at its best, has elegant, sometimes earthy tastes that would pair well with Thanksgiving dinner without adding yet another big, challenging taste to the table. And, thanks to Pinot's growing popularity, there are more of them available, at all prices, than ever.

In this column, we generally try to come up with broad advice about types of wine instead of recommending specific labels, which can be a devil to find. In this case, though, we realize that few people want to take a chance when it comes to Thanksgiving, so we decided to recommend some specific wines. Here's what we did: We put together a list of all of the American Pinot Noirs that have been our favorites in blind tastings for this column. We eliminated the ones that might be hard to find. Then we bought all of the rest—about 35 in all—and tasted them over several nights, both with and without food.

Our bar was a high one: Is this specific wine one that we would recommend to friends and family to serve with what is, for many people, the most important meal of the year?

We generally liked all of them, of course, because they have been our favorites in the past. But six stood out above the others for their class, drinkability and food-friendliness. Three are from Oregon and three are from California. They are from classic old names like Robert Mondavi and newer names like Domaine Serene. And they range in price from less than $20 to more than $50.

This doesn't mean, of course, that these are "America's best Pinot Noirs." In fact, there are quite a few outstanding Pinots on shelves now, and if you have a personal favorite, go for it. For instance, we're currently somewhat obsessed with Pinot from Hirsch Vineyards. Its Chardonnay was among our favorites in a recent tasting, so when we saw its Pinot, we tried it and loved it. But many Pinot Noirs, like Hirsch, can be hard to find, while the six in this index are more widely distributed. While we wouldn't expect many stores to have all six, most stores, we would guess, should have at least one.

We think these wines would pair broadly with all kinds of Thanksgiving foods, from turkey to duck to less-traditional dishes, like salmon. They might even get your mind off the Jell-O mold.

Happy Thanksgiving.