Food and wine pairing
Roast chicken with Lucques olives and thyme, with Pinot Noir Terre Sauvage
The Sunday roast chicken takes on a Languedoc accent with green Lucques olives, unpeeled garlic and thyme. A few mushrooms added at the end of cooking give it an undergrowth aroma. Pinot Noir Terre Sauvage, round and charming, is its natural partner.
The recipe
Roast free-range chicken with Lucques olives, mushrooms and thyme
Serves 4Preparation 15 minCooking 1 hr 15 min
Ingredients
- 1 free-range chicken of about 1.6 kg
- 150 g green Lucques olives
- 250 g button mushrooms
- 6 unpeeled garlic cloves
- 4 sprigs of thyme
- 1 lemon
- 30 g softened butter
- 3 cl olive oil
- 10 cl water
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
Method
- 1
Take the chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Preheat the oven to 200 °C.
- 2
Quarter the lemon and slip it into the chicken’s cavity with 2 sprigs of thyme. Season the inside with salt and pepper.
- 3
Rub the chicken skin with the softened butter and olive oil, then season generously with salt and pepper.
- 4
Lay the chicken on its side in a roasting tin, surround it with the unpeeled garlic cloves and the remaining 2 sprigs of thyme, and pour the water into the bottom of the tin.
- 5
Roast for 1 hr 15 min in total: 25 minutes on one side, 25 minutes on the other, then the rest on its back, basting with the juices every 20 minutes.
- 6
Clean the mushrooms and cut them into quarters. Twenty minutes before the end, add them to the tin with the olives and stir them into the juices.
- 7
Check that it is cooked: the juices that run out when you pierce the thigh should be clear.
- 8
Leave the chicken to rest for 10 minutes under a sheet of foil, then carve and serve with the olives, mushrooms, confit garlic and juices.
Why this pairing works
Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir Terre Sauvage, from sandstone soils, has a bright ruby colour and a delicate nose of undergrowth, small black fruits, blackberry and raspberry. Roast chicken is among its pairings, and with good reason: the tender flesh of the bird lets the wine’s finesse shine through. The mushrooms echo its undergrowth notes, while the confit garlic and thyme remain discreet enough not to mask its fruit. Thanks to light ageing, the round, charming palate envelops the golden skin and roasting juices, and the slight bitterness of the olives is softened by the fruit.
Serve the Pinot Noir at 14 or 15 °C, a little cooler than a full-bodied red. Lucques olives can be replaced by other fleshy green olives.
The shop
The wine for this pairing
Page updated on 12 October 2026