Hold onto your knickers – we’re having a Chicken Crimpy Chardy Party. One of my favourite wines to pair with one of my favourite shapes. The Crimpy offers a light, fluffy crunch compared to its denser colleagues. The Crimpy’s ‘Chicken’ feels halfway between Mum’s roast chook and extra chicken salt at your local fish’n’chip joint. Upon tasting, the flavour coats your palate with rich umami, soon followed by the flaky cracker that brings a brioche-y sweetness. I’m rolling with an oaked chardonnay here, the perfect match to cut through the salt and fat, generous acid to refresh the palate between Crimps, plus the bright fruits and rich mouth feel to balance the umami and the cracker’s sweetness.

I’ve had so many good BBQ Shape memories throughout my life – there’s never really an inappropriate age or moment. Salty, tangy, and herby, with a strong presence of pulverised dehydrated sun-dried tomatoes on their classic flaky, savoury, crispy cracker. So, where to for wine here? If you could think of a traditional Italian, tomato-based pasta, this would be the pairing. Go for a wine with generous ripe fruit and nice smooth, medium to low tannins… nothing to make that salt angry and inflame the tannins on your palate. I did my tasting with a somewhat voluptuous-bodied Sangiovese. It surprised me how well it stood up to the BBQ shape. I almost felt like an adult.

The Shape collection’s chunkiest, crustiest, most sturdy offering with delicious hunks of god knows what protruding from the biscuit, leading to possibly the best part about Pizza Shapes – the end of the foil bag where you coat your fingertips in those crusty protruding hunks of delight pooling at the bottom. Expect more cheese and less tang than BBQ Shapes with solid notes of tomato – it reminds me of a kids’ pizza, nothing too outrageous in the flavour game. Here, I’ve chosen Pinot Noir – floral, fresh and medium-weight profile with decent acid to lift the Shapes’ tomato notes and nicely cut through the cheese factor.

Immediately after cracking open the Cheese and Bacon’s silver pocket, and well before I’d eaten a Shape, the eau de toilette of cured meat hits me like a bus. How much bacon truly exists in this box is a mystery we need not know the answer to. The cheese factor exists but doesn’t overpower the meaty, porky notes. A fairly decent rule of thumb for wine pairing is meat colour = wine colour. Fish = white wine, steak = red wine and here, bacon = rose. You can think of the Cheese and Bacon shape like a sunny Sunday afternoon, low-key cheese and mild meat plate. I’d be looking for a juicy, fresh, young, fruit-forward Rose with high acid to balance the salt, cut through the fat and keep your palate salivating for more.

Dare I say the most boring of the Shape family, I’m yet to work out who actually purchases such a Shape, considering the calibre of Savoury’s colleagues but each to their own. Revisiting the Savoury, it is a tasty morsel but also a confusing one. It’s covered in sesame seeds that I can’t taste, with no obvious mention of cheese, but that’s all I can taste. Dense in fat, and rich in parmesan flavour I direct you towards a crisp, high-acid sparkling wine to take on the palate coating Savoury Shape. I won’t be asking you to fork out for Champagne but a Prosecco or an Australian sparkling would be perfect. These will stand up to the salt and fat, stripping it from your delicate taste buds and leaving your palate feeling shiny, clean and refreshed, ready for your next snack.

Nacho Cheese is the bonus shape, not in the ‘Originals’ collection, but it should be, replacing Savoury, but that’s another conversation. Claims of Mexican spices, tomato salsa, onion and garlic are all more or less evident but where’s the cheese?! Who cares, Arnott’s Shapes do things differently. The point is, Nacho Cheese is not actually a cheese-wine combo. We’ve delved deeper, and I’d be looking for something tropical and ripe, ideal for balancing tomato-based, spicy dishes. Try a ripe style of Pinot Grigio from Australia or the USA, it will still have enough acid to keep the macho nacho cheese flavours at bay while lifting and refreshing your palate.