It may be too early to think about the guest list for Thanksgiving dinner. But given the difficulty of matching libations to the holiday meal, it’s not too early to think about the wine list.

What works with the turkey invariably fails, at least at my table, to work with sweet potatoes – and turns downright nasty with the cranberry sauce. Somewhere out there in the vast universe of wine, there must be a solution to the perfect Thanksgiving wine.

Last Thursday, a group of Loire Valley winemakers took their shot at a solution to the problem by hosting their fourth annual pre-Thanksgiving dinner, held at Tocqueville on East 15th Street. Giving the back of their hand to brevity, the winemakers called the event “La Quatrieme Commemoration Annuelle de la Fete de Remerciement des Pinniers aux Indiens a l’Occasion de l’Achevement de Leur Premiere Annee en Amerique” (“The Fourth Annual Commemoration of the Festival of Thanks of the Pioneers to the Indians on the Occasion of the Completion of Their First Year in America”).

This year, the offbeat aim was to attempt to match the traditional holiday dishes to the red wines of Chinon, Bourgeuil, St. Nicolas de Bourgeuil, and Saumur, a cluster of appellations in the center of the Loire Valley region. All of these wines are made entirely from cabernet franc, a rather charmless second-string variety from Bordeaux, where it is most often consigned to use as a blending grape. In the Loire Valley, cabernet franc gets top billing. It ripens earlier than cabernet sauvignon, a plus in a region that is about as far north as red wine can be made. A hot vintage that produces full ripeness, as was the case in 2003, “cab franc” can truly be a star.

Loire reds don’t get much attention from Americans at Thanksgiving or at any other time, and we are the poorer for it. “Bordeaux wines are more tannic than ours,” a Chinon winemaker at the dinner, Christophe Surget, said. “We are more focused on fruitiness and on not having too much tannin.” While the Loire Valley is only third largest among French wine regions, “we are the number one white wine ordered in restaurants in France and number two [behind Bordeaux] in reds,” Mr. Surget said. As for cabernet franc, “It’s for food. We French don’t have the idea of drinking wine all by itself. Certainly, not this wine.”

The warm-up for dinner was a pair of crisp chinon roses, vintage 2004. The first, from Domaine de Noire ($14.99), was made by the seignee method, in which juice bled off from red grapes becomes the wine. The other rose, from Jean-Maurice Raffault ($14.99), was directly pressed from cabernet franc grapes, with a touch of cabernet sauvignon added. Brief skin contact kept the color pink rather than darkening it to red. Some tasters felt that Raffault’s rose was a tad more complex than the one from Domaine de Noire, but to me, their verve and flavors were equal. Too much contemplation defeats the carefree character of rose.

An intense and sophisticated kabocha squash soup with sauteed pears and foie gras opened the meal. It was served with Marc Bredif’s Chinon 2002 ($15.50), flavorful but a bit tough and in need of a few more years in the bottle to soften up. It was quite a contrast to the next wine, a St. Nicolas de Bourgeuil 2003 “Le Vau Jaumier” from Taluau-Foltzenlogel ($11.99). It’s a mouthful of a name, and a mouthful of wine: smooth, plummy and delicate. A plain squash soup doesn’t need wine. Submerging a slice of foie gras in the bowl, on the other hand, made a persuasive case for wines like these, with their zingy acidity to counter the unctuousness of the liver.

“Wow, that’s not how Thanksgiving dinner looks at my house,” a guest at my table said, admiring the elegantly plated main event: galantine of turkey, chestnut stuffing, sweet potato mousseline, creamed brussels sprouts, cranberry gelee and sage jus. Nor at my house. The dish was partnered by a pair of full, ripe wines from the 2003 vintage, starting with an earthy saumur rouge from Langlois-Chateau ($12.99). Then came a dense but silky textured Chinon 2003 “Clos de l’Olive” from Mr. Surget’s Couly-Dutheil. This wine really spread out on the palate and, despite its youth, had no sharp edges. “Our generation is waiting longer to harvest,” Mr. Surget said. “We’ve learned to wait until the phenolics as well as the sugars are fully ripe.” The small squares of cranberry gelee, by the way, were refreshingly tart, making the wine seem sweeter. Usually, it’s the other way around.

Though Loire reds can give early pleasure, they don’t necessarily fade away, as two 17-year-old wines with the cheese course proved. Olga Raffault’s Chinon 1989 “Les Picasses”($47.99) had coffee, tobacco, and green tea aromas, then unexpectedly youthful, dark-fruited flavors. The Bourgeuil 1989 “Grandmont” ($44.95) from Catherine and Pierre Breton was further down the road of maturity, but still a wine to savor. Last February, at the Breton family table on a hillside and under a windmill, a 1947 Bourgeuil was opened. Fully expressive, it was the kind of wine that elicits strong emotions of gratitude in Frenchmen who pass their vineyard heritage from one generation to the next.

Dinner ended with steamed black walnut pudding. A bone-dry, sparkling Monmousseau “Cuvee JM” ($12.99) left the palate clean as fresh snow.

As I left Toqueville, it was cheering not to feel done in by ingesting too much wine. For that, I must be grateful for the modest alcohol levels typical of Loire Valley wines, which did not preclude a spectrum of vivid flavors. A turkey themed dinner, in any case, doesn’t need the brawny wines, which are best left to accompany red meat. Was I persuaded by this dinner to introduce Loire reds, cabernet franc in particular, to my table next Thanksgiving? Well, quite possibly. The clincher would be if Tocqueville would agree to repeat last Thursday’s entire dinner as takeout. I’m ready to sign up.