Pairing wine with cheese is a no-brainer, but have you ever tried twinning a multipack of Walkers with a £5 bottle of vino from Aldi?. It’s not a combo you’ll find on the menu at any Michelin Star restaurant, but that doesn’t mean the two don’t taste damn good together. Or at least they do if you get the science right. The fat and salt in crisps mellow out the tannins in red wine and ramp up the zest-factor in whites and rosés, making them taste even fresher. It’s the same principal as pairing wines with cheese or meat, they bring out the best in each other, when matched correctly.

Meanwhile, the potato in the crisp (if it has any), amplifies the yeasty complexity in the wine, as the crunchy texture does for the fruit flavours. You may have heard people describing the flavours of a young red wine as ‘crunchy’? That’s because the texture in a wine is as important as the flavour. With that in mind, forget mild cubes of cheddar and bland crackers, crisps are deliberately flavour-packed to represent whatever is written on the packet. Take prawn cocktail, its sweet-creamy-tangy profile gravitates towards a rosé pairing. Or the neutral edginess of a ready salted crisp with matched with Champagne’s crystalline effervescence.

With everything from Quavers to Frazzles, here are the best wines to pair to the crisp style:. Treat meaty crisps as you would a meaty-flavoured meat. Bacon has a caramelised sweetness to it, a fatty-crispy texture and sometimes, a smoky note. Ideally, you’d go for a Northen Rhône Côtes Rotie, which is known for a light smokiness on the nose and sweet fruit character, but we’re not made of money. Tesco’s Côtes-du-Rhône is 50% Grenache will do nicely, for a juicy cherry-berry pairing.

Ready salted crisps are effectively a blank canvas of salt, fattiness and texture. You may be aware that matching Champagne to fish and chips verges on being a spiritual experience, well, this is along the same lines. It’s the simplicity of both parties that gels, along with the dry sparkle of (in this case) Aldi’s deliciously appley Cava alongside the fatty crunch of the crisps. Prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps expect nothing less than a rosé wine pairing, fact. Well, that’s what you’d match to an actual prawn cocktail, something that has enough zest to cut through the creaminess. Skips are particularly fishy, whereas McCoy’s Prawn Cocktail lean more on the sweet and spicy side. All the more reason to select a rosé then, and try this one from the Languedoc for a leaner price tag than Provence’s.

All I know is that my other half loves theses crisps as they have an almost curried spiciness to them and an almost lime-like tang. There’s a school of thought that a red wine, like a juicy Aussie Shiraz, will take the edge off the spice factor here. I’d recommend going with a German Riesling, myself, which has a tangy appley bite and a peachiness to cage the beast. My go-to crisps are a nightmare to pair with wine, it’s the intensity of the onion, see. The trick is to appeal to the sweeter side of the onion flavouring, choosing something to enhance it, rather than clashing with it. Floreal is an almost Viognier-like grape with a rich, tinned peach texture, the perfect partner for the tangiest of snacks.

There’s something about Pringles that makes you feel a bit fancy. So, while you’re raising your game on the snack front, do the same for the vino. Both crisp and wine have a creamy texture here, there’s also lovely guava and mango over a beautifully buttery base from the Chardonnay. Just as well it’s a good match, bearing in mind you can’t stop once you’ve popped. My mouth used to involuntarily snap together like a drawstring bag on contact with these crisps. I weirdly couldn’t get enough of them, even when they gave me acid reflux. It’s like someone has been too heavy-handed with the vinegar and onion flavouring, and I’m here for it. It’s best to match this crisp intensity with a voluptuously textured and lowish oaked wine, just like this plummy-chocolatey number.

Treating a Quaver crisp like the foodstuff it’s representing is a good place to start. It tastes mature Cheddar-like, so we’ll be needing a wine with a decent amount of zest and heft. This one is a ripe, mouth filling, racy white wine with great minerality and lychee fruit, from the foothills of the Pyrenees. Plus, is something a bit different from Sauvignon Blanc. Thai Sweet Chili Kettle Chips are magic. I go in for one crisp and next thing I know, that’s the bag gone. By the same token, once you’ve tasted Chill Bill, you’ll wonder how you’ve lived without it. The two were born to pair together, Chill Bill’s flavours of effervescent sweet cherries, almond and blackberries, hug it out with the sweet heat of the Kettle Chips.

These sit just behind Monster Munch as my all-time favourites. It’s the sheer punch of the salt and vinegar flavouring that makes me salivate like my Golden Retriever at mealtimes. Salt and vinegar crisps, especially at this intensity level, need a wine that’s white, lean, zesty and preferably with gentle bubbles to match up to the salty tang. Picpoul means ‘stings the lips’ due to its lip-smacking zing, and this one has green apple and a delicious saline finish.