What Wine Goes With Indian Food? 27 Pairings to Try

Pairing wine with Indian food has unfortunately been simplified, perhaps because we in Britain don’t always take the time to ask what “Indian food” actually is.

India is home to more than a billion people, dozens of major culinary traditions and extraordinary differences in climate, religion, agriculture and history. The food of Goa, shaped in part by centuries of Portuguese rule, is not the food of Punjab. The coconut, curry leaves, tamarind and seafood found across many southern and coastal cuisines are a very different proposition from the wheat breads, dairy, pulses, meat dishes and tandoor cooking associated with parts of northern India. Move east and mustard oil and fish become particularly important in Bengali cooking; travel west and the food changes again.

There isn’t one Indian flavour profile, and there certainly isn’t one wine that goes with it.

Even “curry”, the word around which so much British understanding of Indian food has been built, is complicated. India has countless dishes involving gravies, sauces, spice pastes and stews, with their own names and traditions. But the idea of curry as a convenient umbrella category for this vast range of cooking was developed and popularised under British colonial rule, reducing enormous culinary diversity into something easier for outsiders to understand, reproduce and export.

That doesn’t mean we need to banish the word from this guide. Curry has taken on a life far beyond its colonial origins and is now deeply embedded in British food culture. So we’ll use the language people actually use – not least because that’s probably what brought you here – while being clear about what it can obscure.

There is another assumption worth questioning when it comes to the wine.

Much of the established language of food and wine pairing was developed around Western European cooking. When traditional wine advice encounters chilli heat, therefore, the recommendation is remarkably predictable: drink something sweet.

There is good sensory reasoning behind it. Alcohol can intensify our perception of capsaicin, the compound responsible for chilli’s heat, while sweetness can make that heat feel less aggressive. If you find a dish uncomfortably hot, an off-dry Riesling or another wine with some residual sugar can be an excellent choice.

But what if you don’t want to make it less hot?

Treating chilli automatically as a problem to be solved assumes a particular palate. For people who grew up eating food in which chilli is an ordinary and pleasurable component, reducing its heat may be the exact opposite of what they want from a pairing.

So sweetness is an option, not a rule.

If you want to temper the heat, reach for a wine with some residual sugar. If you don’t, look instead at fruit intensity, freshness, alcohol and tannin. Generous fruit can prevent a wine from being overwhelmed by highly flavoured food, while moderate alcohol avoids unnecessarily amplifying the burn. With reds, softer tannins will generally be more accommodating than heavily extracted, aggressively tannic styles.

And chilli is only one part of the equation. Cooking technique matters too. Smoke from a tandoor, the concentrated flavours created by dum cooking, the richness of ghee or cream, the tang of vinegar and the earthiness of lentils can be just as important to the pairing as how hot a dish is.

Most importantly, pair the wine with the dish, not the nationality.

So we aren’t going to give you one “best wine for Indian food”.

We’re going dish by dish.

Indian Food and Wine Pairings at a Glance

What Wine Goes With Butter Chicken?

Butter chicken, or murgh makhani, is proof that not every Indian dish is a battle between wine and chilli. Created in Delhi in the mid-20th century, its defining flavours are butter, cream, tomato and gently warming spices, and although the chicken itself may bring some smoky, roasted character, the finished dish tends to be mellow, buttery and rounded, with gentle warmth rather than chilli taking centre stage.

This is a dish about richness and depth, not heat.

Classic Pairing: Chardonnay

Chardonnay is one of the few whites with enough weight to feel at home alongside butter chicken. The creamy sauce calls for a wine with texture, while tomato demands acidity to keep the pairing from becoming heavy.

A lightly oaked Chardonnay is ideal. The subtle toast from barrel ageing mirrors the roasted character of the chicken, while ripe orchard fruit softens the edges of the spices without relying on sweetness. It’s a pairing built on balance rather than contrast.

Also Try: Viognier

Viognier is for people who love the aromatics of Indian cooking as much as the richness. Apricot, peach and honeysuckle echo the fragrant spices beautifully, while the grape’s naturally broad palate has enough substance for the buttery sauce.

The key, however, is finding a wine with freshness. Viognier has a tendency to become boozy and flabby in hotter sites, so look to cooler regions, where the grape can retain enough acidity to balance its naturally rich, oily texture.

Something Different: Blanc de Noirs Sparkling

Sparkling wine is often treated as the universal answer to rich food, but Blanc de Noirs is particularly convincing here. Made from black grapes, it has more body and red-fruited depth than a very lean Blanc de Blancs, while its acidity slices cleanly through butter and cream.

The result is surprisingly luxurious: every sip resets the palate, making the next mouthful taste as vibrant as the first.

What Wine Goes With Chicken Tikka Masala?

Chicken tikka masala occupies a fascinating place in Britain’s food story. Whether it was born in Glasgow, Birmingham or somewhere else entirely, it’s become one of the country’s defining dishes: charred chicken folded into a creamy, tomato-rich sauce layered with aromatic spices.

While the ingredients can make it look deceptively similar to butter chicken, the balance is different: tikka masala puts more emphasis on tomato, spice and the char of the chicken. The sauce can be creamy, but it’s generally brighter, tangier and more assertively spiced.

That changes the wine pairing too, as the tomato brings acidity, and the spices need to be considered.

Classic Pairing: Garnacha

Few grapes handle tomato and spice as effortlessly as Garnacha. We’ve deliberately gone for the Spanish expression of the grape here, where warmer conditions tend to give us the generous, ripe strawberry and raspberry fruit we’re looking for, alongside naturally soft tannins that won’t make the chilli feel harsher.

Rather than taming the spices, Garnacha lets them stay exactly where they are, bringing enough fruit intensity to stand beside them rather than compete with them. Just watch the alcohol: particularly ripe examples can creep upwards, which can amplify the perception of chilli heat.

Also Try: Sémillon

The grape typically produces dry wines with a distinctive waxy texture and enough body to stand up to a creamy sauce, alongside citrus and orchard fruit that bring freshness to the pairing.

Look particularly towards a younger Australian Sémillon, where that combination of freshness, texture and fruit works brilliantly with the tomato and charred chicken. It has enough presence to avoid disappearing beneath the garam masala, without relying on sweetness or exuberant aromatics to compete with the spices.

Something Different: Lambrusco

A chilled, dry Lambrusco is outrageously good with tikka masala. The bubbles lift the richness, the cherry fruit loves the tomato, and the wine’s low tannins keep everything bright and energetic.

If your only experience of Lambrusco is sweet supermarket fizz, this pairing is your excuse to rediscover it.

What Wine Goes With Biryani?

There are numerous regional styles of biryani, from the fragrant, comparatively delicate biryanis associated with Lucknow to the richer meat biryanis of Hyderabad.

For this pairing, we’re thinking specifically about a rich meat biryani cooked dum-style: rice layered with meat, ghee, browned onions and whole spices, then sealed and cooked slowly so those flavours become concentrated.

Classic Pairing: Côtes du Rhône Villages

Typically a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre (GSM), Côtes du Rhône Villages gives us the ripe red and black fruit to meet the sweetness of browned onions, while the pepper, dried herbs and savoury spice typical of the Rhône sit comfortably alongside cumin, cardamom and clove, as well as the deeper flavours developed during cooking.

The important thing is not to go too big. Look for a juicy, relatively restrained example rather than something heavily extracted or particularly high in alcohol. We want enough body for the meat and ghee without drowning out the fragrance of the rice.

Also Try: Dry Furmint

Furmint gives us a completely different route into the dish. Its naturally high acidity cuts through ghee, but unlike a very light, crisp white, good dry Furmint can have considerable concentration and texture.

There’s often a slightly smoky, stony quality too, which makes it particularly interesting with the toasted, browned and savoury flavours of a dum-cooked biryani. This isn’t simply about refreshing your palate; the wine has enough character to participate in the pairing.

Something Different: Amontillado Sherry

This is the one for a deeply savoury lamb or mutton biryani. Amontillado’s toasted nuts, dried citrus and oxidative, savoury character can find all sorts of echoes in browned onions, toasted spices and rich meat.

It’s an intense pairing, so we wouldn’t necessarily pour it with a delicate vegetable biryani. But with a rich, slow-cooked version, the combination can be extraordinary.

What Wine Goes With Tandoori Chicken?

Tandoori chicken presents a very different pairing problem from a sauced curry. The chicken is traditionally marinated with yoghurt and spices before being cooked at fierce heat in a tandoor, giving you tang, smoke and char alongside the aromatic spices.

As such a delicate white can simply disappear, while a heavily tannic red risks becoming hard and aggressive, particularly if there’s plenty of chilli.

Classic Pairing: Rioja Crianza

Tempranillo brings red fruit and sufficient body for the chicken, while time in oak introduces toast and spice that can mirror those smoky, charred edges.

Crianza is the sweet spot here. We’d rather retain plenty of fruit than move into the more developed, oak-led territory of an older reserva Rioja.

Also Try: Verdelho

Verdelho works particularly well with a less fiery tandoori chicken, where the tang of the yoghurt marinade has more room to come through. Its naturally fresh acidity picks up that lactic tang, while the grape has enough body and concentration not to be overwhelmed by the charred meat.

Citrus and tropical fruit provide enough flavour intensity for the aromatic spices, while its combination of acidity and texture keeps the pairing lively. It’s particularly good if there’s a squeeze of lemon over the chicken at the table.

Something Different: Tavel Rosé

Forget the idea of rosé as necessarily pale and delicate. Tavel is among the most substantial styles of rosé, with generous red fruit, spice and considerably more structure than you might expect.

That’s precisely what makes it work here. You get enough flavour and weight for smoky chicken but without the firm tannins of a big red.

What Wine Goes With Korma?

For this article, we’re talking about the creamy, gently spiced and often nutty korma familiar from British Indian restaurants. Typically made with cream or yoghurt, ground nuts such as almonds or cashews, and aromatic spices including cardamom, cumin and coriander, it’s rich and rounded rather than dominated by chilli heat.

The challenge is finding a wine with enough perfume and texture to accompany that rich sauce, while retaining the freshness needed to stop the whole combination feeling heavy.

Classic Pairing: Gewürztraminer

Rose, lychee and ripe tropical fruit give Gewürztraminer the aromatic firepower to stand alongside cardamom and other fragrant spices, rather than becoming lost beneath them. It’s also naturally broad and full-bodied for a white wine, with a slightly oily texture that works beautifully with the cream, yoghurt and ground nuts in the sauce.

Gewürztraminer is often recommended with Indian food because it can carry some residual sugar, but it doesn’t have to be sweet. Korma isn’t necessarily a particularly hot dish, so there’s little need to reach automatically for sweetness to soften the chilli. A dry Gewürztraminer gives you all that perfume, ripe fruit and texture while allowing the spices to remain clearly defined.

Also Try: Pinot Gris

Not Pinot Grigio: Pinot Gris.

We’re looking for the richer, more textural expression of the grape, particularly the kind found in Alsace. Pear and stone fruit complement the gentle sweetness of the dish, while its fuller body prevents the wine from becoming lost against cream, ground nuts and spices.

It’s less flamboyantly aromatic than Gewürztraminer, which can make it the better choice if you want the korma rather than the wine to do most of the talking.

Something Different: Oak-Aged White Rioja

An oak-aged white Rioja can bring body, savoury complexity and notes of nuts, toast and spice that make particular sense with an almond- or cashew-rich korma.

Look for a fresher, moderately oaked style rather than a heavily oaked or extensively aged example. You want enough time in barrel to bring those nutty, toasty flavours, but still plenty of fruit and acidity to balance the richness of the sauce.

What Wine Goes With Vindaloo?

Vindaloo is often reduced to one thing in Britain: heat. But that misses much of what makes the dish interesting.

Its roots lie in Goa and the Portuguese dish carne de vinha d’alhos, meat prepared with wine vinegar and garlic. In Goa, that idea evolved with local ingredients and spices into vindaloo; the ferociously hot curry-house version familiar in Britain is another evolution again.

So while chilli matters, vinegar, garlic and spice are just as important to the pairing. We need freshness for that acidity and plenty of fruit to stand alongside the chilli.

Classic Pairing: Barbera

Barbera’s naturally high acidity makes it particularly good with the vinegar-driven tang of vindaloo, while its generous cherry and plum fruit has enough intensity to remain present alongside the chilli.

Crucially, tannins are generally fairly modest. That’s useful because big tannins and chilli aren’t always happy companions.

Alcohol is the thing to watch. Choose a fresh, juicy Barbera rather than the biggest, ripest example you can find. This isn’t a pairing designed to make the vindaloo taste less hot; it’s about finding a red that can keep up with it.

Also Try: Grüner Veltliner

Grüner Veltliner takes a fresher route. Its high acidity works beautifully with the vinegar, while citrus, green fruit and the grape’s characteristic pepperiness feel at home among the spices.

Look for one with some concentration rather than the lightest possible style. We still need enough wine to stand alongside the dish.

And if you do want to soften the chilli, you can choose a version with a little residual sugar.

Something Different: Sparkling Rosé

Sparkling rosé gives us three useful things at once: acidity for the vinegar, ripe red fruit for the chilli and bubbles to provide refreshment between mouthfuls.

Look towards a fruit-forward New World example, particularly a Pinot Noir-led sparkling rosé from Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. We want plenty of strawberry and red cherry fruit alongside bright acidity, rather than an especially lean or austere style. With vindaloo, delicacy isn’t necessarily a virtue.

What Wine Goes With Saag Paneer?

Paneer is a fresh, mild Indian cheese made by curdling milk with an acid such as lemon juice. It isn’t aged and doesn’t melt in the way many European cheeses do, instead retaining its soft but firm texture as it cooks. In saag paneer, those pieces of creamy, milky cheese are combined with a spiced mixture of cooked leafy greens.

Green vegetables have a reputation for being difficult with wine, but the answer isn’t simply finding the sharpest white available. The paneer adds richness and weight to the dish, so the wine needs enough substance to handle the cheese as well as enough freshness to work with the greens.

Classic Pairing: Sauvignon Blanc

This is one occasion when Sauvignon Blanc’s green character becomes an advantage.

Its herbal notes can echo the leafy character of the dish, while high acidity brings freshness to the paneer. Citrus and tropical fruit then provide contrast against the more earthy, savoury flavours of the cooked greens.

We’d avoid an extremely lean, aggressively grassy example. A Sauvignon with a little more fruit and texture ie from warmer climates makes a much more complete pairing.

Also Try: Godello

Godello is less overtly herbal than Sauvignon Blanc but brings something Sauvignon can sometimes lack: texture.

Look particularly to Valdeorras in Galicia, where Godello can combine fresh acidity with good body, orchard and stone fruit and a subtle mineral, savoury character. That extra weight is useful with the creamy paneer, while there’s still enough freshness for the cooked greens.

Rather than mirroring the green flavours of the dish, as Sauvignon Blanc does, Godello provides more of a contrast: fruit and texture against the earthy, savoury saag.

Something Different: Pinot Noir

If you want red wine, keep things light.

Pinot Noir’s combination of red fruit, earthiness and fresh acidity works surprisingly well with cooked greens, while its relatively gentle tannins won’t overpower the paneer.

Look for a Pinot with plenty of bright red fruit and acidity rather than one that’s very ripe, high in alcohol or heavily influenced by oak. Served slightly chilled, it can be particularly good.

What Wine Goes With Dal Makhani?

Dal is not a single dish, so telling someone which wine goes with “dal” isn’t especially useful. Dal makhani gives us something much more specific to work with.

Associated with Punjab, makhani means “buttery”, which gives you a pretty good clue as to the style of the dish. It’s traditionally made with whole black lentils, often with kidney beans, which are cooked slowly until soft and creamy, then enriched with butter and sometimes cream. The result is earthy, smoky, savoury and substantial.

That richness and depth mean we don’t need to restrict ourselves to delicate whites.

Classic Pairing: Mencía

Mencía is a red grape grown primarily in north-western Spain, particularly Bierzo and Ribeira Sacra. It typically produces medium-bodied reds with plenty of fresh red and dark fruit, alongside floral, herbal and sometimes earthy or mineral notes.

That combination makes it particularly interesting with dal makhani. The fruit provides contrast against the earthy lentils, while Mencía’s more savoury side sits comfortably alongside the smoky, slow-cooked flavours of the dish. It also tends to have enough acidity to cut through the butter and cream, without bringing the heavy tannins of a much bigger red.

Look for a younger, fruit-driven example with little obvious oak. We want the freshness and fruit of Mencía here, rather than a richer, heavily oaked version.

Also Try: Marsanne-Roussanne

This Rhône partnership is particularly good when the dal makhani is generous with the butter and cream.

Marsanne brings body and texture; Roussanne contributes perfume and freshness. Together they can offer stone fruit, florals and subtle nutty or savoury notes that sit beautifully alongside lentils and warming spices.

This is very much a pairing based on weight meeting weight. A skinny white would get lost; Marsanne-Roussanne has the breadth to stay in the conversation.

Something Different: Skin-Contact White

Skin-contact white gives us another way to introduce structure without reaching for a tannic red.

Time on the grape skins can add texture, gentle grip and savoury flavours ranging from tea and dried citrus to herbs and spice. Those characteristics can be fascinating against the earthy depth of slow-cooked lentils.

Don’t take this as an instruction to buy the funkiest orange wine in the shop. Look for a more commercial style of skin-contact white, where the gentle grip and savoury character are still there, but there’s plenty of clean, fresh fruit too.

What Wine Goes With Samosas?

With samosas, start with the frying.

Crisp pastry and a dense potato or meat filling create considerably more weight than the individual spices might suggest. Add chutney and you’ve potentially got sweetness, acidity, herbs and chilli joining the party too.

The best pairings therefore need enough substance for the filling, but freshness is essential for cutting through the fried pastry.

Classic Pairing: Crémant d’Alsace

Lots of acidity and bubbles cut through the fried pastry, but we’ve gone specifically for Crémant d’Alsace, where Pinot Blanc is one of the principal grapes used and can bring a little more body and generous orchard fruit to the wine.

That extra substance matters with a dense potato filling: we want the freshness of sparkling wine without choosing something so lean that it disappears against the samosa. Apple and pear fruit also sit happily alongside the spices, while the bubbles provide a welcome reset after each bite.

It’s versatile enough to cope with whatever arrives alongside the samosas too, from cooling yoghurt and mint chutney to something considerably hotter.

Also Try: Chenin Blanc

Look to South Africa, particularly Stellenbosch or Swartland, for a Chenin Blanc with enough weight to take on a samosa. Alongside Chenin’s naturally high acidity, which is brilliant for cutting through fried pastry, these warmer regions can give us riper apple, quince and stone fruit that won’t disappear next to a dense potato or meat filling.

We’d stick with a dry version here, ideally with some texture rather than the lightest, simplest style. There’s enough fruit to sit alongside the spices without needing sweetness to soften them.

Something Different: Dry Cider

Forget wine altogether and pour cider.

Structurally, a dry sparkling cider works in much the same way as sparkling wine: acidity and bubbles cut through the crisp, oily pastry and refresh the palate between bites. But cider also brings ripe apple fruit that provides a contrast to the savoury potato, peas and spices inside, and works particularly well if there’s tamarind or a sweet chutney on the side.

Look for a traditional dry English cider, ideally one made with bittersweet apples. These can bring a little tannin and much more depth than a simple commercial cider, giving them enough structure to handle a heavily spiced filling.

Want to get better at pairing wine with food?
Read our wine pairing guide to learn the basics of acidity, sweetness, tannin, body and flavour intensity — and start working out your own pairings.

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