This study addresses the problem of finding correspondences for wide baseline stereo. Texture has traditionally been utilised as a single-image cue for 3D shape reconstruction (shape-from-texture); at the same time, its role in multiview scene reconstruction has been very limited. In stereo image matching, repetitive patterns are usually considered as disturbing factor since they tend to produce multiple peaks of correlation, which results in matching ambiguity. We argue that presence and proper analysis of distinct, compact periodic texture areas can facilitate wide baseline matching by providing periodic distinguished regions (PDRs) that efficiently constrain the search for correspondences. We demonstrate how PDRs can be used to find a few initial correspondences in a wide baseline stereo pair and to establish precise correspondences for building the epipolar geometry. Experimental results for various wide baseline stereo pairs are shown.