What kind of wine should I pair with this Peruvian chicken dish?

I don’t know much about wine, but I understaood that white meat calls for white wine, red meat for red wine. Don’t know how accurate that is. I like a nice Zinfandel, but I’m not a reliable source…

Peru is not known for its wines, but commercial beer such as Cusqueña are very popular
http://www.cusquena.com.pe/
as is the local home brew known as “Chicha.”
Beer goes very well with Peruvian chicken. If you MUST have wine though, I would suggest something like Frexinet Cordon Negro, “Spanish Champagne.”

I would serve a Pinot Grigio simple light, not too dry, slighty fruity and won’t overpower a flavorful dish like the one you are preparing.

You just have to love the internet. Here is a link to Wine Review Online where six people selected wines to go with Peruvian Chicken. It lists five specific recommendations and about how much each runs.

What a surprise.. A Chardonnay, a Zinfandel, and a Merlot. And they recommend the same for Chinese, Indian, BBQ, Birthdays, Christmas, and the 4th of July too.
This trio of mass market wines won’t do anything special for the Peruvian chicken, they’ll just help the wine merchants get rid of the wines they have a glut of.

Chianti from Italy, ya I know spaghetti wine.

Chardonnay from oak barrels.

Both will stand up to spices and lots of choices.

Chianti will be too tart and dry.

Nothing wrong with a good California Zinfandel. It should carry it’s weight against the cumin and peppers, though, so not a mampy pampy one… ask for a nice full round one and pay the extra two dollars or so. Another nice paring is there are some surprising California Pinot Noir, but you don’t want a watery one, ask for one with a touch of bite. If you have a really good wine seller around your parts, a slightly aged New Zealand Pinot Noir is a very very nice surprise. One from the Marlborough region, if you can get it.

As for the white, I’m not so good with whites, because I don’t like sweet and most people’s tastes run to sweet in white wine. I tend to go for spicy, tasty, dry with whites… so they’re usually Gewürztraminer or Pinot Gris.

Hope this helps some. All those years living in the wine districts should have taught me something other than how to drink copious amounts… hahhaa.

I would suggest a Cabernet Blush, or White Zinfandel (rosé)

That looks totally yummy! I bought a Hugo Gruner Veltliner the other day that would be delicious with that. I’ve never paired chicken with a red before, but recently had a bottle of Borsao red wine that, for inexpensive wine, and given the fact that I generally avoid reds, was quite good.

@Tropical_Willie This isn’t a question of standing up to spices. Peruvian food is lightly seasoned, it’s not spicy like Mexican. Have a look at the recipe, paprika and cumin… very mild. Chianti is great with an Italian tomato sauce laced with garlic, but it would be overkill with this, and frankly so would Zinfandel. If you were dead set on having an Italian wine I’d go with a Frascati or a dry Prosecco.

@GeorgeGee
I guess you right, I like my wine up front in the meal.

@GeorgeGee I’m in Norway, cumin is spicy to me. ha ha

When I ran the wine shop we got this exact question all the time; there is a Peruvian chicken takeout joint down the street.
Try a Portuguese Aragonez blend. Aragonez is another name for Tempranillo (which seems to have about 40 names). It’s rare that you’ll fine a mono-varietal Portuguese wine. They are almost always a blend of Aragonez and other indigenous, Port variety grapes.
As a generalization, they are going to be fruit forward wines with a touch of earthiness, but with less extraction then you’d see from the “fruit bombs” of the west coast of the US.

As for a white, try a cheap Rueda from Spain.

Enjoy!