The unbeatable combination of frites and French fizz. Every hot, salty, crispy, fatty, long, skinny, crunchy morsel that enters your pie hole is washed down with the most effervescent mouthful of fresh, cold, bright bubbles, full of all the flavours that perhaps as a mad Maccas fan you may not pick up immediately but you can trust me when I say the yeasty, bready, brioche notes will perfectly dance with this hot, greasy, moorish potato. Your taste buds will enter disco mode as the Champagne hits, stripping them naked and dousing them in bubbles. Your palate is now fully refreshed and ready for the next chip. The formula is eat chippy + drink bubbles = mouth disco. Rinse and repeat.

I’m revealing more of myself than I thought I would but I am a nugget. A chicken nugget. That is my Maccas position. A juicy, warm, white nug’ of nondescript compressed chicken coated with a crispy camel-coloured batter (am I selling it?), eaten either in one bite or two, dipped in sweet and sour sauce (obviously). Wine wise I’m slinging you a rosé – something zesty and alive. I love a Provence rosé and I feel like you will too. Smashable and refreshing, its delicate, floral notes, red fruits, citrus, and spice can handle the zingy, sweet sauce and not overpower the nugget which itself is not a flavour bomb but is extremely moreish. A French rosé will liven up the palate after each nugget is plopped in your gob.

The Mac that means business. They say Big Macs and Burgundy but I’m reserving the Pinot Noir for our next burger. The Big Mac needs something, well, bigger. Go a mid-weight, fruit-forward shiraz. The sugar in the bun and mayonnaise needs some bright ripe red fruit to stand up to it but there is enough meat in this tower of taste to require a more adult wine. Nothing too heavy and tannic though, think cooler climate or New Zealand shiraz over the old school ‘meal-in-your-glass’ South Australian drops. Otherwise, your burger will lose all gusto and no one needs a Big Mac with self-esteem issues.

This thing barely even touches the sides. It just slides right now. You probably need two. Flat, delicious, and so different to its brother, the Big Mac. The sauce really changes the flavour profile, far more tomatoey with a zing of pickle and crunch of chopped onion. Try a pinot noir with a slight chill (this will require a fridge and for you to think ahead, I appreciate that is hard). A drop that is light in body and a bit more savoury than your standard pinot to play off the tomato sauce, onion and pickle but also work with the salty meat patty.

I’m not going to lie. Revisiting a Filet-O-Fish was a total trip. It was smaller and squarer than I remembered and more fishy. More fishy than the chicken nugget was chicken-y because, besides the square factor, it actually looked like it came from a fish when I bit in. What to pair with it? It’s time for a chardy party. I’ve gone with an Australian chardonnay. Try an unoaked, fresh, crisp Chablis style. The acid will strip your palate of grease, prepping you for your next F-O-F mouthful. You don’t have to spend a bomb either, $25 is fine. Chardonnay can get up there, good grapes are hard to grow and when the wine-making process involves oak it can get expensive but a high acid, elegant, bright drop will have your lips smacking and pair delightfully with the tartare sauce.

After eating and dissecting all these tasty morsels, I realised that unless you’re at least three wines deep or on the other side of a big night, McDonald’s can be a little underwhelming and not exactly how I remember it after netball games when I was 16. However, this is not a huge issue because the moral of the story is drink more wine. Preferably before and during Maccas. Problem solved!