For our 13-person Thanksgiving feast this year, we enjoyed a variety of wines, from a value-minded treats I scored for $16, to a carefully-aged treasure I pulled from the recesses of my cellar.

But guess what the group fave was? For this most-American of holidays, guests seemed most drawn to the most-American vintage on the table. This wine caught everyone’s attention with its deep purple color, forward plummy nose, and delicious mid-palate punch of black cherries, currants, and a touch of fruit cake.

For the stand-out on the table, click here for more:

The fave of the evening was a Frank Family Zinfandel 2003 from Napa Valley. It’s made by a former Disney executive, who bought the historic Larkmead winery in the early nineties and has since been making delicious chardonnay, cab, and surprisingly good sparklers. I brought the wine for a reason: zinfandel is grown and bottled only in the U.S.A., and this zinfandel was made with Disney money. Well, how much more patriotic can you get?

The zin won, I think, because it was the most showy, fruit-driven wine on the table — though not over-the-top and jammy, so not overpowering vis a vis the food. Still, there were contenders. My mother and aunt, who are long-term chardonnay fans, enjoyed two vintages of older Kistler: the McCrea Vineyard bottling from 1998 and the Dutton Ranch from 1999. The McCrea was hanging in there, with plenty of honey, butterscotch, and tropical fruit notes. But the Dutton Ranch was drinking beautifully — “more vibrant,” says Mom.

Because I love wine with food, I was most attentive to the best pairing. And for me, the perfect marriage happened the next day, actually, with leftover turkey sandwiches: a Beaujolais, a Cote du Brouilly 2004 from Chateau Thivin I bought for $17.50. But during dinner, for me the winner was definitely the aged cabernet, a Dunn Napa Valley 1986 that was drinking amazingly well, considering it was more than three times older than my little second cousin, who is securely in first grade. Soft, gentle, and perfect with turkey, it still had enough stuffing to stand up to the stuffing.