Top pairings

Which wines to pair with calamari/squid

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on July 25 2025 at 18:05

Calamari or squid is often served as a starter or appetiser with other dishes so you need to bear that in mind when you’re choosing a wine to pair with it. It also depends on the way you prepare it.

It’s one of those ingredients that doesn’t have a great deal of flavour of its own, except when it’s cooked with its own ink. It’s more about whether it’s deep-fried, seared or cooked on a grill and what the seasoning is.

Except when it’s cooked with red wine I’d say that almost any crisp citrussy white would work, sauvignon blanc being the obvious option but plenty of French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese whites would work too.

Fried calamari or chipirones

Fried food is great with anything fizzy so a sparkling wine such as cava or a crémant would be perfect.

Or if it’s part of a selection of Greek mezze, a crisp citrussy white such as Assyrtiko or Picpoul from the Languedoc.

Chilled manzanilla sherry would also be brilliant especially with Spanish-style chipirones (baby squid). (If you haven’t tried manzanilla with seafood you should!

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