Chicken is usually best with white wine but you can break the rules

Chicken is on the menu for tonight’s guests. To complete the meal, serve wine. What wine goes best with chicken? It all depends on how the chicken has been prepared.

Chicken is versatile: it can be fried, broiled, boiled, baked or roasted. It goes well with various wines, including red. The standard rule, which you can choose to break, is serve white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat.

White wines are associated with poultry and fish dishes, whereas reds go better with vigorous pasta dishes and red meat.

However, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, fowl, a white meat, pairs well with a rich-toned fruity red.

You can couple a red with a crispy, golden-brown fried chicken or broiled, grilled or roasted chicken, while poached breast fares better with a white, according to the Wine Advisor Express.

Chardonnay is a good choice because it complements the meat, possessing the correct blend of fruitiness, sweetness, acidity and body.

When serving roast chicken, Semillon mix and Sauvignon Blanc work well. When the meat has a tomato base opt for Italian Chianti or Cabernet Sauvignon from Chili or a French Medoc.

If you want a red rather than white select one that is buoyant and fruity to drink with your poultry pick a Beaujolais or Zinfandel. Roast chicken is complemented by Merlots, Bordeaux blends, good Cabernets and other intricate Old World-reds.

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Pinot Noir and Zinfandel both go nicely with this type of white meat.

Barbecue chicken on the grill is especially popular in the summer. Combine it with a robust wine that can compete with the vinegar, ketchup, brown sugar and mustard that are in barbecue sauce. A bold, fruity red works.

Wine enthusiasts note that Chianti Classico, which originated in Tuscany and is red, goes perfectly with poultry braised with mushrooms and tomatoes (cacciatore) while fowl cooked In red (coq au vin) pairs up neatly with Bourgogne, a French Pinot Noir.

Italian chicken consists of herbs, black olives, anchovies, tomatoes and white wine when cooked. Drink Brunello di Montalcino or Tuscany’s Chianti Classico, which are derived from red Sangiovese grapes. These two wines are the ideal balance with Italian cuisine because they consist of cherry tomato-ish fruitiness and have natural tartness.

When eating fowl laced with paprika, choose a plentiful yet yielding wine such as California Cabernet or French Bordeaux because it helps absorb the rush of piquant and sweet flavors in the meat.

When eating Chinese style poultry that is potent, drink Riesling white. It comes together nicely with gingery spices because it reverberates the sweet and sour notes of the chicken. The Chinese prepare poultry using sweet and sour lemon sauces, garlic and ginger, which requires a white wine that is strikingly perfumed and is tart with hints of sugar.

When in New Orleans you chow down on Cajun/Creole style casserole chicken that is thickened with peppers, onions, celery and many other seasonings and spices (this is called roux). Etouffee is the French word for stuffed. This term is used in regard to Cajun/Creole cooking that is smothered in sauces and vegetables. This type of food should be drunk with a wine that equals the food’s layers of spice and potency. Choose California’s Zinfandel. It smells like jam and is silky.

Resources:

Zagat Wine: Pairing wine with poultry
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