What Wine Goes With Chicken? Red or White, by Recipe

The best wine with chicken is usually a medium-bodied white such as Chardonnay or a light, low-tannin red such as Pinot Noir. Chicken itself is mild, so the real decision comes from how it’s cooked and what sauce goes with it: crisp sparkling wine for fried chicken, a fruity red for barbecue, an off-dry white for curry. Here’s what to pour with each.

Red or white with chicken?

Either. Wine Spectator’s editors use chicken to explain one of the core pairing rules: match the wine to the most prominent flavor in the dish, which is often the sauce or cooking method rather than the meat. Their example is Chicken Marsala, browned and earthy with mushrooms, which suits a soft red, against chicken poached in lemon cream, which calls for a fresh white.

What chicken doesn’t need is a lot of tannin. Tannin is the drying grip that big reds leave on your gums, and it’s at its best against the fat in red meat. Chicken is leaner, so very tannic wines can overpower it. That’s why the reds that work best are lighter ones: Pinot Noir, Gamay (Beaujolais), Grenache or a Côtes du Rhône.

Chicken dish	White or sparkling	Red or rosé
Roast chicken	Chardonnay, lightly oaked	Pinot Noir, Beaujolais, dry rosé
Fried chicken	Champagne, cava, Prosecco	Lambrusco, sparkling rosé
Grilled or BBQ chicken	Off-dry Riesling (sweet sauces)	Zinfandel, Malbec, Cabernet Franc
Creamy chicken	Oaked Chardonnay, white Côtes du Rhône	Rarely needed
Chicken in tomato sauce	Not the best fit	Chianti (Sangiovese), Grenache rosé
Spicy chicken or curry	Off-dry Riesling, Chenin Blanc	Dry rosé
Chicken with mushrooms	Oaked Chardonnay	Pinot Noir, medium-bodied reds

Sources for the styles in this table: Wine Folly’s poultry guide and Wine Spectator’s chicken, pasta and pairing articles, plus a few of our own suggestions explained below.

Roast chicken

Roast chicken is the easiest bird to match, because roasting keeps the flavor in. Wine Folly says roasting preserves enough of the meat’s richness that you can choose a richer wine, and lists oaked Chardonnay, rosé, or a light-bodied red such as Pinot Noir or Grenache.

Chardonnay is the classic. A lightly oaked one has the body to match crisp skin and pan juices. If you prefer red, Wine Spectator’s roast chicken roundup paired different recipes with Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (with za’atar), a cru Beaujolais (with a simple roast and potatoes), Côtes du Rhône (with mushrooms), Provence rosé (with lemon and sumac) and a young Rioja crianza (with honey-harissa).

Our pick: for a plain Sunday roast with lemon and herbs, a lightly oaked Chardonnay, and for a roast with mushrooms or a rich gravy, a Pinot Noir. Our best pinot noir under $20 list has research-based picks with critic scores and dated prices.

Fried chicken

Fried chicken is fatty, salty and crunchy, and sparkling wine handles all three. In Wine Spectator’s piece on fried chicken pairings, sommelier Aldo Sohm of Le Bernardin explains that the bubbles cut through the fat and the wine brightens a heavy dish. The article names Champagne, Prosecco, cava and Franciacorta.

Wine Folly lists rosé Champagne, sparkling wine and Lambrusco. Lambrusco is a lightly sparkling red from northern Italy, a good choice if your crowd wants red with their wings.

Our pick: a dry cava or Prosecco, both easy to find at a fair price. See our best prosecco under $20 for options.

Grilled and BBQ chicken

Smoke and char give grilled chicken more flavor, so it can take a fuller wine. Wine Folly suggests Zinfandel, Cabernet Franc or Malbec for smoky grilled and barbecued poultry, and recommends savory sauces over sweet ones with these wines.

Sauce matters here. A sweet, sticky barbecue sauce makes a dry red taste sour, because sweet food makes wine seem drier and more bitter (the WSET, a wine education body, explains this in its food-matching guide). With a sweet glaze, a fruity, ripe Zinfandel or an off-dry white is safer than a lean, dry red.

Our pick: Zinfandel for sweet-and-smoky barbecue, and Malbec wine for grilled chicken with a savory rub or chimichurri.

Chicken in a creamy sauce

Cream, butter and cheese add weight, so the wine needs body too. Wine Folly recommends oaked Chardonnay or a white Côtes du Rhône for cream sauces, because their richness matches the dish. If the sauce is a beurre blanc made with white wine, it suggests serving the same wine you cooked with.

For a lighter cream sauce, Wine Spectator’s pasta guide suggests a medium-bodied white with enough acidity to cut through the richness of Alfredo-style sauces, such as Vermentino from Sardinia or Liguria. Acidity is the tart, refreshing quality in wine, and it keeps a rich dish from feeling heavy.

Chicken with mushrooms is a halfway house. Wine Folly suggests medium-bodied reds with earthy mushroom dishes, and Madeira or sherry sauces call for spice-driven reds such as Barbera, Sangiovese, Zinfandel or Tempranillo.

Chicken in tomato sauce

Tomatoes are tart, and acidic food makes a low-acid wine taste flat. For chicken cacciatore, chicken parmesan or chicken in marinara, choose a red with plenty of acidity of its own.

Wine Spectator’s pasta guide says a tomato sauce wants a fruity, bright red such as Chianti, a medium-bodied Sangiovese from Tuscany, big enough to stand up to the tomatoes but not so big that it overwhelms them. In our view, a Barbera or a dry Grenache rosé would follow the same logic for a lighter, summery tomato dish.

Tip: Taste the sauce before you choose. If it’s tangy and herby, go for a high-acid Italian red. If it’s slow-cooked and rich, a slightly fuller red works.

Spicy chicken, curry and jerk

Chili heat is where wine can go wrong. The WSET explains that heat makes wine taste less fruity, less full-bodied and less sweet, and increases the sense of alcohol, so a big, tannic, high-alcohol red tastes hot and bitter. Wine Spectator’s pairing tips say the same: very spicy dishes clash with tannin and high alcohol, and fruity or lightly sweet wines do better.

Wine Folly’s suggestions for spicy and curry chicken are sweet or off-dry whites such as Riesling, Chenin Blanc or Moscato, because sweetness balances heat and aromatic whites suit coconut-based sauces. For sweet-and-sour chicken it suggests Riesling or a lightly sweet sparkling wine such as Moscato d’Asti. For Jamaican jerk, which is bold and spicy rather than creamy, it names Zinfandel or Tempranillo.

Our pick: an off-dry Riesling for anything from butter chicken to Thai green curry. Its touch of sweetness takes the edge off the heat.

Poached and cold chicken

Poaching mutes flavor, so a big wine will flatten it. Wine Folly suggests very light whites such as a dry Chenin Blanc for poached chicken, and crisp whites such as Albariño, Pinot Blanc or unoaked Chardonnay for cold chicken and chicken salads.

Finding a good bottle

Most of the styles above are easy to find for under $20. Our best wine under $20 list picks bottles by comparing published critic scores with current US prices, using the method on how we rate wine. For the principles behind all of these matches, see our wine and food pairing guide.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age (21 in the US). Please drink responsibly.