Menu Matcher - Chicken .....................................................................................................................................................................................................

Chicken is terribly versatile when it comes to wine matching and provides the perfect canvas to many different vinous styles. Light dry whites with a cold chicken salad for a summer lunch, rich, earthy Italian reds with a deliciously sautéed chicken breast or perhaps a ripe and rounded Pinot Noir with the Sunday roast - all will work and all will provide real pleasure. Perhaps it would be simpler to chose your wine first, matching the dish to wine for a change!

Picpoul de Pinet, 2006 -Les Costières de Pomerols Dry, crisp and fragrant, with a distinctive nutty nuance. Perfect with seafood, white fish and poultry, and as an aperitif. The grape is Picpoul, and the Village is Pinet, about 10km North of Agde, near Marseillan. It's what the locals drink with the famous oysters of the region, and is little seen in this country. The sub division of the Côteaux du Languédoc is situated in the middle of a sea of red wine vineyards in the heartlands of the Languédoc. ..................................................................................................................................................................

Rioja Blanco Seco, Monopole, Barrel-Fermented, 2005 - Compania Vinicola del Norte de España, Spain Classic White Rioja, full bodied and dry, with a crisp fruitiness and a good dollop of creamy vanilla oak. The Monopole Blanco is a barrel-fermented white Rioja, a style which was pioneered by CVNE's winemaker, Basilio Izquierdo, combining the classical use of American oak with the intense fruity flavours and refreshing acidity of the Viura and Malvasia varieties. ..................................................................................................................................................................