Fried chicken, spicy or not, is delicious 365 days a year. I crave the crunch of a perfect crust, with an extra-spicy kick, and tender mouthfuls of brined meat. I’m often too impatient to wait for it to cool, so my first eager bites burn my mouth. This is where wine comes in: to assuage the pain, as well as to enhance the experience.

By now everyone knows that the highbrow-lowbrow combo of Champagne and fried chicken is a winner. But a good bottle of bubbles is wasted on the hotter versions of fried chicken, which will drown its nuances in a sea of spice. Pairing with spicy dishes of any sort is notoriously difficult, especially when it comes to red wines. The wrong choice can lead to both disgusting and downright uncomfortable combinations—neither Nebbiolo nor whiskey play nice with chili. Also, what if you really can’t handle the heat but want to open a bottle with someone who does? No problem. You can find wines that go particularly well with any kind of fried chicken—hot or not.

I live in Copenhagen, which is, sadly, sorely lacking in top-notch fried chicken. Poulette (which shares owners with its neighbor Pompette, a fantastic little wine bar and bottle shop) makes an excellent spicy bird, but only in sandwich form. KFC has made it here, but when it comes to fast food, I’ve always been a Popeye's spicy chicken girl. What I really want is fried chicken from Brooklyn stalwarts Pies ‘n Thighs or Peaches Hothouse 

So I make my own, using Samin Nosrat’s recipe in her Salt Fat Acid Heat, which she based on her fried chicken, from Gus’s in Memphis. The key is brushing the cayenne pepper-based spice mix on the chicken after frying. This means you can enjoy spicy and non-spicy versions side by side—and top it off with any of these excellent wines. 

Fried Chicken Wine Pairings

N2023 Peter Lauer "Barrel X" Riesling ($22)

Riesling is a perfect pairing with any fried chicken, spicy, sweet or otherwise. And while there is some residual sugar in Barrel X, it’s far from being a sweet wine: it’s more like eating a peach than slurping a 7-Up. 

This is sourced from vines that vigneron Florian Lauer revived from ancient sites, which he now painstakingly farms. This regional blend encapsulates the Saar’s qualities. It has the steely acidity to cut through the rich fried crust, and a lime-tinged, stone fruit sweetness, which placates the punch of the pepper. The salty, dry finish is added seasoning for the chicken, and heightens the whole experience. 

NV Valdespino Viejo C.P. Single Vineyard Palo Cortado ($40, 500mL)

Matured a whopping 25-plus years, and chock full of umami goodness and a composition that defies expectations in its pairing abilities.

It starts under flor—a film that forms on top of the wine and is made up of cacophony of wild yeasts. They eat the unfermentable sugars and the glycerin, a byproduct of fermentation, that both taste sweet and add weight to a wine. Once those are removed, the entire structure of the wine changes. While this is, technically, a low-acid wine, it doesn’t present as such. Instead it feels perfectly balanced; brighter, lighter, and more mouthwatering than its analytics would have you expect. As with the Riesling, the brightness really cuts through the fat. 

Flor also creates inimitable flavors; brined almonds, bread, and dried pear. Another 20-odd years of slow oxidation adds raisins, coffee, toffee, toasted hazelnuts, smoke, leather, tobacco, and spice. All of this makes for a truly magical pairing with complex foods like spicy fried chicken. The more herbs and spices you throw in the blend, the more chemical reactions seem to explode on your palate, thereby making one of the most delicious things on earth even more delectable.

2021 Claus Preisinger Kalkstein Blaufränkisch ($22)

Red wines are notoriously hard to pair with spicy food. The alcohol and tannins get into a negative synergy with the spice: the alcohol burns more, the tannins jump out more, and any burning or bitter flavors in the food are amplified. Sugar buffers these effects, but sweet reds are both hard to find and not usually worth drinking. 

Consider, instead, this yummy Blaufränkisch redolent with the slurpable flavors of sun-kissed strawberries. Entry-level versions, like this, tend to have fewer and softer tannins, and lower alcohol levels (this one clocks in at 12.5 percent). And the grape’s high acidity sluices the fat away, while its five-spice character enhances whatever other spices are the recipe for your batter.