Pairings | Fortified

The best wine pairings for partridge

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on September 21 2024 at 06:07

I sometimes think partridge is my favourite game bird - less full-on and ‘gamey’ than pheasant, more subtle and delicate than chicken. But what wine should you drink with it?

The options are in fact similar to my recommended wine pairings for pheasant but because it’s a more delicate meat think lighter, finer-textured wines - a gran reserva rather than a reserva rioja, for instance. As you’ll see from the suggestions below 2009 and 2010 were good across the board

Whether you go for pretty youthful fruit or a more complex aged wine depends how you cook it (for me simply roasted is best) your personal taste and your bank balance but these would be my preferred options:

If you have a treasured red burgundy partridge is a good excuse for cracking it open. (2009 or ’10 should be drinking deliciously now). Or a top pinot noir (German spåtburgunder, for example). A ‘natural’ low sulphur pinot - or gamay - would be especially interesting.

* A mature red bordeaux which could be even a touch older, say a 2005.

* A top barolo (again the 09s and 10s were good from this region but beware, there’s a lot of dull barolo around)

To gain full access to this article and other premium content you need to purchase a bundle of credits which you can do as a one-off purchase or - and this is better value if you consult the site regularly - on an ongoing subscription basis. (1 credit = 1 article)

To buy credits you need to register an account, which which is easy to do here. Or just sign in to your account if you already have one.

If you’d like be able to check out all the food and wine pairings on the site you can buy a bundle of credits here to access my premium content.

And/or for regular updates on what and where I’ve been eating, drinking and travelling sign up for my weekly newsletter Eat This, Drink That, Live Well.