How to Pair Wine With Chocolate

Planning a festive dinner? Might there, just possibly, be wine involved?

Chocolate too? Can you drink wine with chocolate?

Food And Dessert

The riposte is easy - yes! But what wine? What chocolate?

That riposte can be easy too: select a wine you like and some chocolate you like. But it's easy to do good than that.

A basic principle of pairing wine with food is that they should both have similar body. That's to say, a strong, heavy dish needs the power of a big, structured wine. And a light, delicate between-meal edible matches good with a dainty, subtle wine. Big matches big, and petite matches little. I mean, if a sumo wrestler dons a frilly pink dress, you're going to laugh, right? Maybe not in his face, but you'll find it strange.

For example, a delicate scallop entree is going to get clobbered by a hefty California Cabernet Sauvignon. And you'll hardly taste your delicate white with a two-pound grilled Florentine steak. Most chocolate desserts are on the heavier side, so they want a big wine.

That's the main thing, but you can mix and match flavors too: it's like cooking. If the wine has some nutty-almond notes, it's going to compliment the sweet, toasted aromas of the chocolate. A hint of vanilla from oak-aged wine makes an perfect complement to the chocolate. And the contrasting acidity of a well-balanced wine will cut straight through that sweet chocolate coating your mouth. Part of what makes a good pairing is a wine that cleans your mouth, so you're ready to indulge in more food.

One final note on pairing wine with sweets: The wine should be sweeter than the dessert. Otherwise, the sweetness of the sweetmeat brings out too much sourness in the wine. You can try some big dry reds with chocolate too. Many people enjoy a California Zinfandel or even a Bordeaux with bitter, dark chocolate.

So here are some ideas to match with the chocolate sweetmeat you want to impress your friends with:

Many Monbazillacs or Sauternes from southwestern France can hold their own against a rich chocolate dessert. Sagrantino Montefalco Passito is a delicious, full-bodied, red sweetmeat wine from Perugia, in Italy's Umbria region.

Also consider something even bigger, such as a Tawny Port from Portugal, a Pedro Ximenez Sherry from Spain, or even a Marsala Ambra Superiore from the sunny shores of Sicily.

Whatever you choose, the most important thing is that you drink a wine you like... And that you don't laugh at the sumo wrestler.

How to Pair Wine With Chocolate