Celebrating National Potato Chip Day with a Champagne Pairing

National Potato Chip Day is definitely a worthy of celebration.  This special event occurs on March 14th and champagne and potato chips are a perfect pairing, so why not create a super fun bubbly pairing experience to commemorate the special day.  

There are always so many questions about how to pair food and wine and I honestly thing sparkling wine is the easiest to pair with food.  Champagne, sparkling wine, cava, prosecco, crémant, basically all wine with bubbles pair perfectly with fried, fatty, salty foods.  The acidity in the sparkling wine and the pop of those bubbles will make you crave one chip after another after another.  

Creating a Champagne Pairing Experience

A potato chip and sparkling wine pairing party is probably the easiest one to throw.  Here’s the thing, you can grab any type of sparkling wine you prefer.  In fact, when I throw a pairing party, I always vary the type of bubbly.  There’s always a sparkling wine and a rosé.  And then for the other two (I usually use 4 different types of sparkling wines in my pairing experiences) I choose between champange, cava and prosecco.  The thing to remember is there is no right or wrong way to do this.  

And it can be as formal or as informal as you want it to be.  I like to have tasting mats to track the combinations we like the most and you can download one here.  (Once you put in your email, you’ll be taken straight to the downloadable mat.  And then get ready for some fun emails with exclusive content from us.). But tasting mats are definitely not needed, they’re just fun.  

We’ve also done a non-alcoholic pairing party for when we have kids present or those who don’t drink sparkling wine.  And this is so easy because there are so many sparkling beverages now from water to juices to soda.  Heck, you could even have fun creating some mocktails to pair.  

We’ve had a few potato chip pairing experiences over the years.  I mean, potato chips are the most popular snack food, easy to get and perfect to pair with bubbly, so why not?

Potato Chip Selection

The first time I hosted a potato chip and sparkling wine pairing, we chose classic potato chip flavors.

• Classic Lay’s-of course, you can’t eat just one!
• Ruffles Orignal
• Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream
• Cape Code Kettle Cooked Potato Chips-I did buy the reduced fat for no other reason than I like it better than the regular because I find them less greasy.  
• Baked Lay’s-this is a bag I can polish off in one sitting and I don’t know I didn’t have high hopes for this with a bubbly pairing, but we felt we needed to try it out. 

The second time I hosted a potato chip and sparkling wine pairing experience, we made three different types of homemade potato chips and paired with three different sparkling wines.

And the most recent potato chip and sparkling wine pairing experience, I decided to do all new and unique flavors.  Nothing normal about the selection I chose for this round.

• Kettle Brand Salt & Pepper
• Frederik’s Kentucky Style Smoked Bourbon 
• Frederik’s Parmesan Garlic
• Crav’n Sea Salt & Vinegar
• Utz Fried Dill Pickle  
• Trader Joe’s Pizza Party
• Terra Sweet Potato 
• Utz Mike’s Hot Honey

To set the table with this variety of potato chips, I, of course, went to the Dollar Tree to get a bunch of bowls of different sizes.  And because we had so many potato chip options, I simply printed name tents on the computer so we would know what was what.  

Sparkling Wine Selection

The first time I hosted this experience we had 3 different sparkling wines:

• Wilson Creek Brut:  a solid go to brut because it’s light and refreshing.  It’s not one of those bruts that you need to add juice to….it’s great as is.  This is one of those that I have in the big bottle and splits for those times when you just need a glass of bubbles.  

• Argyle Blanc de Blancs-Knudesen Vineyard:  oh my gosh, this bottle is the perfect combo of a smooth, buttery chardonnay and bubbles.  Truly one of my favorites.  And if you’re not a fan of the creamy, buttery goodness of a chardonnay, this may not be for you, but for me….it is always in stock at my place.

• Erik Turner ‘Rock the Pink’ Sparkling Primitivo Rose:  this bottle was new to me and for me was a bit too sweet for a rosé.  It was very strawberry forward in smell and taste in my opinion.  I like my rosés more on the tart side.  But the girls did enjoy this and didn’t find the sweetness to be a giant deal breaker.  

This most recent National Potato Chip Day celebration, I chose 4 different sparkling wines:

• Classique Isabelle Brut Sparkling Wine out of New Mexico-The super fine bubbles and creaminess of this sparkling wine made it really easy to drink and enjoy.  I would buy this bottle again for sure.  We enjoyed the Parmesan Garlic, Fried Dill Pickle and Mike’s Hot Honey best with this sparkling wine.

• M. De Ligny Blanc de Blancs from France-This bubbly also had super fine bubbles, but was crisp with a zesty finish.  We enjoyed Salt & Pepper, Sweet Potato and Parmesan Garlic best with this bubbly.

• 90 Plus Cellars Prosecco from Italy-We have been loving this prosecco particularly to top our sparkling wine cocktails.  And what we love most about it is that we enjoy it on it’s own as well.  It is super bubbly, which I of course absolutely love, crisp and, for me, with all prosecco, you will get that hint of citrus.  We enjoyed the Sea Salt & Vinegar, Mike’s Hot Honey and Fried Dill Pickle best with this prosecco.  

• 90 Plus Cellars Prosecco Rosé from Italy-This beautifully pale pink prosecco was delightful.  It’s labeled extra dry , but I didn’t find it to be too sweet at all.  It’s super easy drinking, very enjoyable with those amazing bubbles and the perfect hint of red fruit.  We enjoyed the Sweet Potato Chips and Kentucky Style Smoked Bourbon chips best with this bubbly.

How to Enjoy a Bubbly Pairing Experience

There really is no right or wrong way to do a pairing.  

• Some people like to take a sip, enjoy it for a few seconds, swallow then eat the food. 
• Some people like to take a sip and then a bite and then swallow them both together.
• Some people like to take a bite of the food and then a sip of bubbly.  

During this most recent experience, because 3 out of the 4 sparkling wines were new to us we tried the bubbly by itself first and then just played with potato chip pairings.  You’ll notice on the tasting mat, we had 3 spots for chips, but there were some bubbly that we needed to keep tasting because we were loving it.  

​It’s really all about the fun, the trial and error and, of course the company.  This is just a fun twist on a girls’ night in or a traditional dinner party.  

In the end, everyone’s palate is different and we’re all going to enjoy different pairings.  With every sparkling wine tasting event I host, there is rarely a unanimous favorite on just the sparkling wine let alone which pairing is best. 

​Want More?  

We love a good pairing experience and have created many that we love pairing with sparkling wine.  Check them out here.

Would you like help in hosting a wine tasting party or a pairing experience?  Well, you’re in luck, because I do them in person and virtually.  Let’s chat.  

Are you part of our Instagram and Pinterest Communities?  We’d love to see you over there.  Instagram has a lot of behind the scenes and Pinterest will help you to keep your favorite bubbly, cocktails, mocktails, travel destinations, etc. organized.  

What pairing experience should we create next?