Chicken Pot Pie pairs best with medium to full-bodied white wines like Chardonnay, Viognier, Pinot Gris and Grüner Veltliner. You want more of a full-bodied white wine with a buttery texture, as Chicken Pot Pie is a rich dish due to the pastry and gravy used.
For red wine, light and fruity red wines that edge on medium-bodied, such as Beaujolais Villages, Barbera, Grenache, and Pinot Noir, pair best with Chicken Pot Pie. Light and fruity reds are a must as the high acidity of these red wines cuts through the rich gravy and buttery pastry flavours of Chicken Pot Pie, keeping your palate refreshed. Meanwhile, the lighter nature of these red wines won’t overwhelm the tender chicken flavours.o
Best Wine with Chicken Pot Pie
Chardonnay & Chicken Pot Pie Pairing
A full-bodied Chardonnay that delivers a round, creamy texture of vanilla, butter and toast is brilliant with Chicken Pot Pie. Here, you’ll find that the toasty and buttery flavours of the wine complement the rich and flakey flavours of the Chicken Pot Pie. If you top your Chicken Pot Pie with a fluffy layer of mashed potatoes, the buttery flavours of Chardonnay will be just as delicious as well.
Unfortunately, modern Chardonnay can sometimes go overboard on the butter factor of Chardonnay. Marketing trends have pointed toward people enjoying these flavours in North America, and as a result, many wine producers have tried to capitalize on this trend and keep costs low by achieving these flavours with artificial flavourings, oak chips and chemicals. The result is that you get a lot of cheap wine on shelves that tastes cheap, perfumed and often of rancid popcorn. So for the good of your soul, seek out a balanced Chardonnay from a reputable producer.
And what I mean from balanced is that you don’t want the Chardonnay to taste like you are sipping on melted butter. Instead, you want Chardonnay’s contrasting flavours of tropical fruit, apple and peach to swing in as well to offer a refreshing alternative to the savoury gravy and earthy root vegetables baked into your Chicken Pot Pie.
A White Burgundy from France is often the best Chardonnay money can buy that is balanced. I’d highly suggest white Burgundy with homemade Chicken Pot Pie, where you have mastered the perfect breaded crust. With Chicken Pot Pie from frozen a supermarket, I’d go with a less expensive Chardonnay from California, Oregon, Argentina, Chile, Canada and Australia that doesn’t go overboard with the oak. A few of my favourite Chardonnays from these regions include Tawse, Catena, Penfolds, Norman Hardie, Kistler, Mer Soleil, Patz & Hall and Argyle.
Viognier & Chicken Pot Pie Pairing
Viognier is a dry tropical fruit bomb with the creamy texture of Chardonnay that makes it a fantastic white wine to pair with Chicken Pot Pie. The creamy structure of Viognier complements the rich bready crust of your Chicken Pot Pie. Meanwhile, the delicious flavours of apricot, peach, tangerine and tropical fruit cut through the rich gravy, offering up refreshment, and ensuring that the tender chicken flavours are never drowned out. These vibrant flavours also bring out the best in any corn, peas, carrots, potatoes or other vegetables in your Chicken Pot Pie.
Aside from being creamy in texture, Viognier has an oily texture that comes off as silky. The silkiness of the wine merges perfectly with the soft and rich flavours of the chicken gravy in your Chicken Pot Pie.
Grüner Veltliner & Chicken Pot Pie Pairing
Grüner Veltliner is a medium-bodied Austrian white wine with a greenish tinge that complements the vegetables in your Chicken Pot Pie. Expect melon, peach, pear, and grapefruit aromas on the nose, which will assist to bring out the subtle flavours of the poultry in your Chicken Pot Pie.
Grüner Veltliner also has green vegetable flavours, such as green beans, pureed peas, lentils, dill, grilled zucchini and fresh green herbs that complement any veggies tossed into your Chicken Pot Pie. When I make Chicken Pot Pie at home, I always include a lot of peas. I love the sharp contrast of the sweet pea flavour against the gravy’s savouriness. Grüner Veltliner also delivers mineral-like flavours that some people describe as fresh kitty litter. For me, I don’t taste that, but rather a stony mineral tang which weaves in brilliantly with any root vegetables in your Chicken Pot Pie.
Where Grüner Veltliner shines the brightest in this pairing is with the wine’s unique notes of white pepper. I find that the White Pepper flavour elevates the Chicken Pot Pie to new heights and enhances every fork or spoonful of the dish.
Spicy, bright, yummy and clean, Grüner Veltliner is best-served cold, where its citrus, green and peppery characteristics work in perfect harmony with the variety of ingredients in your Chicken Pot Pie.
Beaujolais & Chicken Pot Pie Pairing
If you are a red wine drinker, a chilled glass of a light and fruity Beaujolais pairs well with Chicken Pot Pie. Chewy reds that are loaded with tannin will swamp out those tender chicken flavours, along with the gravy and bread. Acidic by nature, you won’t have that issue with Beaujolais Villages. Instead, the high acidity of this fruity red wine will electrify all delicate flavours in the Chicken Pot Pie and bring them front and center. The high acidity of Beaujolais also melts right through the rich gravy and bready carbohydrates of the pie crust. This allows each bite of Chicken Pot Pie to taste as delicious as the first, as your taste buds are no longer clogged up with fats and carbohydrates.
Beaujolais Villages is an inexpensive red wine from France that is vibrant with juicy flavours of cherry, raspberry, strawberry and cranberry. You’ll also find subtle notes of black pepper, mineral, clove and earth that mingle nicely with the gravy, chicken and veggies in your Chicken Pot Pie. If you want to keep up this pairing a notch, seek out a Beaujolais Cru, which amps up the flavours a touch and is a little more velvety in texture. Beaujolais Cru is more challenging to find, as bottles may only be imported once every year and are snapped up quickly, given their high quality to low-cost ratio.
Pinot Noir & Chicken Pot Pie Pairing
If your Chicken Pot Pie includes mushrooms, Pinot Noir is an excellent wine pairing thanks to its subtle earthy and forest floor aromas. Similar to Beaujolais, Pinot Noir is an acidic red wine that will cut through the carbohydrate and fat of Chicken Pot Pie without overpowering the poultry flavours. Aside from earthiness, expect teasing notes of strawberry, cherry and raspberry with this velvety and lip-smackingly delicious red wine.
Good Pinot Noir is costly. Where you can find a decent Shiraz or Merlot for $20, a good Pinot Noir starts at about $35. There are exceptions, but I want you to understand that the shelves are flooded with subpar Pinot Noir that does not do this wine the justice it deserves. Pinot Noir is an expensive grape to grow and an costly wine to make, as it requires a lot of patience, knowledge and care to tend to this finicky grape. Some wineries forgo the effort to grow and harvest the best grapes they can grow. Instead, they add chemicals and artificial flavourings to their Pinot Noir to save money and shell out Pinot Noir that is perfumed with vanilla, mocha and strawberries and ends up tasting like candy.
If you’re new to the world of red wine, ask around wherever where wine is sold to find the best Pinot Noir for your money. Avoid bottles with cupcakes, cute animals, or sparkly fonts.