Chicken 'soft bone' shows up on Japanese menus (usually skewered and grilled, yakitori-style) and at Chinese restaurants fried with salt and pepper. It's not really bone - it's the soft cartilage, and when cooked, it has a slight crunch and resistance. What makes it taste good is that the cartilage usually has a fair amount of succulent chicken fat. The fat gives the soft bone defined flavour and sweetness that, when grilled or deep-fried with a touch of salt, takes the dish to the next level of intensity. The chicken fat eagerly soaks up plenty of salt and spicy seasoning, one of the reasons why the yakitori soft bone is such a wonderful snack with drinks. The best wine with yakitori or Chinese soft bones needs freshness and layers of complexity. It also needs rich fruitiness to sit alongside the salty seasoning as well as the intense 'chicken-ness'.
Sadie Family Palladius 2004, South Africa
This is a great wine for blind tasting - in fact it's a great wine, period. Anyone who's been lucky enough to have more than a few mouthfuls will recognise it immediately. But deducing that it's from South Africa and is made 'in the most natural way possible' from ancient vines is difficult. It's a rare wine. It's totally delicious, with multiple layers and loads of fullness without being clumsy. Its savoury, wild fermented and rich fruit characteristics make it a perfect match with anything salty and grilled - such as sardines and yakitori chicken soft bones. The wine's fullness and the soft bone's texture are perfect partners in prolonging the flavours. Available for HK$480 from Altaya (tel: 2523 1945)
Abrate Roero Arneis 2007, Piedmonte, Italy
Twenty-one red grapes and 17 white grapes make up the flesh and bones of the Italian wine industry. Such variety means no two wines are even vaguely similar, although most consumers are stuck on the most popular handful. Italian wines are not necessarily complicated, but their tastes are more distinctive than you may think. This arneis has a lovely perfume and is a favourite white wine of the Piedmonte region. It is often unoaked and the fruit really shines, especially in young, fresh bottles. It's a perfect match with chicken soft bones, whose spicy savoury salt is lifted by the wine's pear and blossom fruity tones. The rich fruit continues to massage the texturally resistant cartilage until all the flavours fully expire. Available for HK$189 from Oliver's (tel: 2869 5119)
Carpene Malvoti Rose Cuvee Brut, Italy
