Top Wine Pairings For Roast Chicken
Argentina drinks differently from the rest of South America, and the difference is Italian. The immigration wave that arrived between 1880 and 1930 brought amaro, brought wine culture, brought the habit of drinking something bitter after a heavy meal. Layer that over a Guaraní stimulant, add a wine industry sitting at altitudes no European vineyard can reach, and you get a drinks culture that has almost nothing in common with the caipirinha and pisco belt further north.
What follows is what Argentines drink, when they drink it, and what to buy. Not what shows up on a tourist menu in Puerto Madero.
Fernet is an Italian amaro (bitter herbal liqueur), around 39% ABV, made from a botanical mix that includes myrrh, saffron, chamomile and rhubarb. On its own it tastes like medicine. Argentines fixed that by cutting it with Coca-Cola, and the result took over the country from Córdoba outward in the 1980s.
The ratio matters more than the brand. One part fernet to three parts Coke is standard. One to four is what you pour for someone new to it. The 1:1 pour that foreigners assume is correct will end the night early. You build it in a tall glass with ice, pour the fernet first, then add the Coke slowly down the side so it doesn’t foam over. No lime, no garnish, nothing.
Branca is the reference bottle and the one to buy. Fernet 1882 and Vittone are the domestic competitors and both are cheaper and noticeably rougher. Argentina drinks the overwhelming majority of the world’s Fernet-Branca output, and Branca built a dedicated plant in Buenos Aires Province to keep up
When Argentines drink it: at a previa (pre-party) before going out, at a birthday, at the end of an asado when the wine is gone and nobody wants to stop. Rarely with food. It is a social drink, not a table drink.
For the full build and the mistakes that ruin it, see how to make a proper fernet con coca.
Malbec is a French grape that failed in France. It came from Cahors, struggled with rot and frost in Bordeaux, and was largely abandoned there after the 1956 frosts. The cuttings arrived in Mendoza in 1853 with a French agronomist working for the provincial government, and in a desert at altitude with irrigation from Andean snowmelt, it did what it never managed in Europe.
Altitude is the reason. Vineyards in the Uco Valley sit between 900 and 1,500 metres (2,950–4,900 feet). Intense daytime sun builds ripeness and colour, cold nights hold acidity in place, and the result is a wine with dark fruit and soft tannins that still tastes fresh at 14% alcohol.
Serve it at 16–18°C (61–64°F). Argentine houses in summer run well above that, so twenty minutes in the fridge before opening is normal practice, not heresy. It goes with the fattier end of the Argentine beef cuts, particularly tira de asado (short ribs) where the tannin cuts through rendered fat.
More on the grape and the producers worth knowing in the guide to Argentine Malbec, and on the terroir in the Mendoza wine region breakdown.
Mate is not tea and it is not a beverage you order. It is a shared vessel passed around a group, refilled by one person, drunk through a metal straw, and governed by rules nobody writes down.
The leaf is Ilex paraguariensis, a holly native to the northeast. It is dried, aged, and ground with varying proportions of stem. More stem means a milder brew, which is what you want if you are starting.
The water goes in at 75–80°C (167–176°F). Boiling water scalds the leaf and turns the whole thing bitter within two or three rounds, and this is the single most common error foreigners make. Argentine kettles and thermos flasks are calibrated for it.
The rules that matter: one person, the cebador, fills and passes every round, and you drink the whole gourd before passing it back to them, not to the next person. You do not move the bombilla (metal straw). Saying “gracias” means you are done and want out of the rotation, so do not say it politely after every round unless you want to be excluded for the rest of the afternoon.
Argentines drink mate in the morning, in the office, in the car, on the pavement outside a house, at 4pm, and before an asado while the fire builds. It is the reason nothing in Argentina starts on time.
The full sequence, including curing a new gourd, is in the guide to the mate ritual and its place in Argentine culture.
Quilmes was founded in 1888 in the town of the same name in Buenos Aires Province, and for most of the twentieth century it was what beer meant here. It is a pale lager, light, cold, unchallenging, and it exists to be drunk in a litro (one-litre bottle) shared across a table on a hot afternoon.
The litro is the point. Argentines do not buy a beer each. One bottle arrives, small glasses are poured from it, and it is refilled. Ordering an individual bottle marks you out immediately.
The craft scene changed the picture from around 2013 onward. Palermo, Villa Crespo and Chacarita filled with cervecerías pouring IPAs, honey beers and scotch ales, mostly sold by the pinta (pint) or the growler. Antares was the early national name; the market is now crowded with regional producers, and quality varies wildly bar to bar.
Beer is the drink for the first hour of an asado, before the meat is ready, alongside a choripán. It is not what you drink with the beef.
Vino patero means foot-trodden wine, crushed by feet rather than by press, made in small artisanal batches in the northwest. La Rioja, Catamarca and the Jujuy quebradas are where you find it, often sold from a table at the roadside or from the house of the person who made it.
It is unfiltered, unstable, and rarely labelled with anything useful. Alcohol can land anywhere between 12% and 15%, sulphites are minimal or absent, and a bottle that tasted good in March may be undrinkable by August. Drink it young, drink it cool, and do not buy six bottles to take home.
The quality range is enormous. Some of it is vinegar. Some of it is the most interesting thing you will drink in the country: a light, slightly wild red from old Criolla or Malbec vines, made the way wine was made here before industrial equipment arrived.
Buy it where it is made, taste before buying if the seller offers, and treat it as a regional experience rather than a cellar purchase.
A submarino is a tall glass of hot milk brought to the table with a sealed bar of chocolate on the saucer. You drop the bar in, it sinks, and you stir until it dissolves. That takes two to three minutes and the stirring is half the appeal.
Every café in the country serves it. It costs a fraction of what a hot chocolate costs elsewhere and it is significantly better, because the chocolate is a proper bar rather than powder.
Argentines drink it in winter, in the afternoon, usually with medialunas (small sweet croissants) or churros. Adults order it without embarrassment. It is the one drink here with no social rules attached to it at all.
Order it in any confitería at any time of the year. Ask for the bar on the side if they bring it pre-dissolved, which some places do to save time and which defeats the purpose.
A licuado is fruit blended with either milk or water, and you specify which when you order: con leche or con agua. Banana con leche is the default. Durazno (peach), frutilla (strawberry) and melón are the other common ones, and the fruit is fresh, not frozen or syruped.
Con agua is thinner and closer to a juice. Con leche is thick enough to be a meal, and in a country where lunch runs to 2pm and dinner starts at 10pm, that gap gets filled with a banana licuado more often than anything else.
Every bar, every corner café and every beach kiosk makes them. There is no craft version and no premium version. It is a two-ingredient drink that costs almost nothing and has stayed unchanged for decades.
Ask for it without added sugar if the fruit is in season. Most places add a spoonful automatically, and with a ripe banana it is not needed.
Torrontés is Argentina’s only significant native white, a natural cross of Muscat of Alexandria and Criolla Chica. The one that matters is Torrontés Riojano, and the best of it comes from Cafayate in Salta, where vineyards sit between 1,600 and 2,000 metres (5,250–6,560 feet).
The wine plays a trick on you. The nose is intensely floral and smells sweet: rose, jasmine, white peach. The palate is dry, with sharp acidity and a slightly bitter finish. People who expect a sweet wine based on the aroma get caught out every time.
Serve it cold, 8–10°C (46–50°F). It handles food that defeats most whites, particularly anything with heat or heavy aromatics, which is why it works with empanadas salteñas and why it is the right pour alongside mollejas (sweetbreads) done properly where the crisp acidity cuts the richness.
Very little leaves the country compared to Malbec. If you see a Cafayate bottle abroad, buy it.
Sangria is Spanish and made with red wine. Clerico is Argentine and made with white. Confusing the two in company here will get you corrected within seconds, usually by more than one person.
The build is white wine, chopped fresh fruit, and often a splash of sprite or soda water. Peach, orange, apple, strawberry and grape all go in, cut into pieces small enough to eat with a spoon at the end. Sugar goes in only if the fruit is underripe.
Let it macerate in the fridge for two to four hours before serving. Less than two and the fruit has given nothing to the wine. Much more than four and the fruit turns to mush.
This is a December and January drink. It appears at Christmas Eve dinner, at New Year, and at every family lunch through the summer where the temperature is above 30°C (86°F) and nobody wants a heavy red. Use a cheap Torrontés or a basic white blend. Good wine is wasted in it.
Bonarda is the second most planted red grape in Argentina, and almost nobody outside the country has heard of it. Its identity was confused for decades: what Argentina calls Bonarda is genetically Douce Noir from Savoie in France, the same grape Californians call Charbono, and not the Italian Bonarda at all.
It makes a red with low tannin, deep colour, and dark fruit that leans toward plum and blackberry. Where a Malbec is structured, a Bonarda is soft and immediate. It does not need age and it does not need decanting.
Serve it slightly cool, 15–16°C (59–61°F), which is unusual advice for a red and correct for this one. It pairs with the first half of the asado rather than the second: chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), provoleta. Against a heavily marbled cut it gets flattened.
The value is the argument. The bottom shelf of Argentine Bonarda outperforms its price by more than any other wine in the country, and the top end from old vines in San Juan and eastern Mendoza is serious wine sold at unserious prices.
| Drink | When Argentines drink it | What it goes with |
| Fernet con coca | Previa, late night, end of an asado | Nothing. It stands alone |
| Malbec | The main course of a parrilla | Tira de asado, vacío, bife de chorizo |
| Mate | Morning, afternoon, while the fire builds | Facturas, bizcochitos |
| Quilmes | First hour of an asado, hot afternoons | Choripán, provoleta |
| Vino patero | Regional, on the spot where it is made | Goat, empanadas, regional cheese |
| Submarino | Winter afternoons, May to September | Medialunas, churros |
| Licuado | Between lunch and dinner, summer | Nothing. It replaces a meal |
| Torrontés | Summer lunch, spicy or aromatic food | Empanadas salteñas, mollejas |
| Clerico | December and January, family lunches | Long meals in the heat |
| Bonarda | Early asado, weeknight dinner | Chorizo, morcilla, provoleta |
If you are stocking a shelf for the first time, buy three bottles: a Branca, a Bonarda from eastern Mendoza, and a Cafayate Torrontés. That covers the social drink, the everyday red, and the white that surprises people. Add the Malbec when you have a full asado to put it next to, because that is where it earns its reputation and where drinking it alone will always undersell it.
Yerba mate, by daily consumption: most adults drink it every day. Fernet con coca is the unofficial national cocktail, strongest in Córdoba where it started. Malbec leads exports, but at home Argentines drink across a much wider range.
Bitter on the first taste, then it stops being. Argentines cut it with Coca-Cola at 1:3 or 1:4, which turns the bitterness into something closer to a herbal cola. Drinking it straight is rare and mostly for settling a heavy stomach.
Yes. Argentine wine is one of the best value markets in the world. A mid-priced Mendoza Malbec usually drinks better than a Californian cabernet at twice the price. At the bottom end, look at Bonarda or entry-level Torrontés.
Wine or fernet, not beer. Beer is usually already there. A bottle of Malbec is the safe choice. If you bring fernet, bring the Coca-Cola too. Never arrive with one bottle for a table of ten.
In summer, yes, and nobody apologises for it. Ice goes into young whites, rosés and light reds like Bonarda when it is above 30°C (86°F). It is not done with an aged Malbec anyone paid real money for.
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