← All pairings

What wine with spicy food?

Food and wine pairing · classic benchmarks: the preparation and your taste come first.

Curry, Thai food, tagine, spicy couscous: chilli amplifies alcohol and tannins. The answer: aromatic whites, a touch of residual sugar, and cold service. Great German Rieslings are unbeatable on this ground.

White

Aromatic and slightly off-dry, it soothes the heat instead of fanning it.

• Alsace Gewurztraminer
• Alsace Riesling
• Alsace Pinot Gris
• Condrieu
• Mosel

Rosé

A structured rosé follows tagines and spiced grills.

• Tavel
• Côtes de Provence

Sparkling

Bubbles cool the palate between spicy bites.

• Crémant d'Alsace
• Champagne

How to use these pairings

A good pairing balances the dish and the wine: neither should dominate. The suggestions above are proven classics for the category, not rules: the preparation, the sauce and your taste matter more. When in doubt, the regional pairing (the wine from the dish's homeland) rarely fails.

What about your cellar?

Caviste makes this pairing with your own bottles: type "raclette" or "fish" in your cellar search and the app ranks your wines by affinity, favouring those at their peak. Discover Caviste.