The best wine to drink with Chinese food
Our expert says the best wines to pair with Chinese food depend more on the person than what's being eaten.
Our expert says the best wines to pair with Chinese food depend more on the person than what's being eaten.
In a hotel in Shanghai I learned the art of being a Chinese sommelier. And it has little to do with matching food and wine, according to Yang Lu, China’s first (and still only) Master Sommelier.
In one of the city’s last traditional food markets, he served me a dish of frog with fiery chillies. When I said I couldn’t think of any wine that would go with it, Yang laughed: "Welcome to our world – the Chinese sommelier has a tough job!"
China is, in a sense, the birthplace of wine. People made rice wine more than 9,000 years ago, sometimes fermented with grape skins. But grape wine – the wine we know – is a relative newcomer, becoming truly popular only in the last 20 or so years.
"You have one billion people [in China]," Yang explains.
"There are so many different types of cuisine… people from different regions and with different tastes. It’s not about pairing dishes. It’s about pairing people…"
His guiding principle? You match the wine to the person, not the food.
Which means Yang doesn’t give me much advice on how to match wine with Chinese food (although fermented, salted eggs are excellent with vintage Champagne apparently).
So I’ve been experimenting. I’d recommend Peking Duck with El Sabio Pinot Noir 2025 (12.5%, RRP £12.99). You need a Pinot Noir with plenty of red-berry fruit and freshness to cut the duck fat, and soft tannins for the sweet-savoury hoisin sauce.
But what if you move on to wok-fried dishes? My chum Daniel Chu at the excellent Wings restaurant in Manchester suggests you need something a bit smokier. Like Paul Ginglinger Pinot Noir 2023 from Alsace in France (12.5%, RRP £16.50). It has a savoury, beetroot character and a smoky tang.
The traditional ‘go-to’ recommendation for Chinese food also comes from Alsace. The spicy, tropical scented Gewurztraminer grape has hints of ginger and a soft sweetness to match spicier flavours. Try Chez Michel Gewurztraminer 2024 (12.5%, RRP £12). It works especially well with Kung Pao Chicken or sweet and sour dishes. Remember, this is a country with four ‘great traditions’ in food and ‘eight great cuisines’. Gewurztraminer only works with a few of them.
So for the lighter, softly sweet seafood of Guangdong, try Yealands Reserve Pinot Gris 2023 (13%, RRP £12.50). It’s richer than Sauvignon Blanc, making it better with slight sweetness, but it still has a steely core that’s great with shellfish.
For the precisely textured, courtly dishes of the Jiangsu tradition, try Piccozza Pinot Bianco 2023 (13%, RRP £12.75). It won’t swamp the flavours of Nanjing salted duck or Yangzhou fried rice, but it will give the dishes a complementary ‘background noise’ of clean, fresh orchard fruit.
But what of wine from China itself? They’re often excellent and ten years ago I could have recommended half a dozen you could easily have found. However, Chinese wine is hard to find today. Perhaps we weren’t ready for them. But you can buy Chateau Changyu Moser XV White Cabernet (13.5%, RRP £22.99), a delicious, beguiling pink-tinged white from Ningxia province made by an Austrian, from Selfridges.
You just need to follow Yang Lu’s advice and find the right person to serve it to.
If you want to explore China for yourself, join this 17-day escorted tour with Saga which takes in the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China and Shanghai.
As part of the tour you'll enjoy a Gongyan cultural banquet.
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