Chocolate and wine have long maintained their reputations as the most romantic food and drink. However, they do not traditionally make a nice pair. Street got some advice from Marnie Old, the nationally-renowned sommelier and author behind Old Wines LLC, on how to avoid gustatory disaster when mixing and matching the two.
“We don’t normally pair wine with chocolate,” says Old. “It’s a matter of food chemistry.” She points out that most wine that we drink is dry, meaning it is low in sugar and high in acidity; these qualities make it an ideal mate for savory foods. Where salty foods contrast with and enhance wine’s subtle aromas, sweets smother them, making a dry, acidic wine even drier and more biting. Mixing your average wine and chocolate is “like the toothpaste and orange juice effect,” she says. The wines that do benefit from sweet accompaniment are even sweeter themselves. Old suggests three standard pairings between fortified dessert wines (rich wines that have been strengthened by the addition of brandy) and chocolate types. She warns that drunk alone, the libations can be overwhelmingly thick and cloying; they only reveal their true potential in the context of the chocolate. A good general rule of thumb is, the darker the chocolate, the darker the wine.
Dark chocolate — Late Bottled Vintage Port (ex. The Dow, $20-25)
This intensely-red northern Portuguese wine is twice as strong as your average bottle, so servings should be half as large. Its high concentration is well balanced by the complex, peppery flavors of darker dark chocolates (think 80%+ cocoa). Truly dark chocolate begins to mimic wine in some ways, taking on its own acidity; this is the source of its special dynamic with Port wine.
Milk chocolate — Cream Sherry (ex. Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry, $11-12)
Cream sherry is made from white-skinned grapes that have dried in the sun, so the resulting liquid is a chocolate brown color. Old describes Harvey’s as tasting like “liquid toffee” by itself but says that milk chocolate mutes its extreme sweetness. She likens the smoky-edged flavors that result to toasted almond and caramelized sugar; the texture takes on a “custardy” quality.
White chocolate — Fortified Muscat (ex. Quady Electra, $12)
Orange Muscat grapes create notes of honeycomb, apricot and peach in this white dessert wine. Again, Old remarks on the richness of the drink, but she says that the relatively more delicate flavors are appropriate as we move further away from the spicy bite of dark chocolates. The lighter sweet and citrus aromas play well off the creaminess of the chocolate without getting lost. Old emphasizes the importance of quality for white chocolates, so invest in some Belgian truffles.
Sweethearts Wine and Chocolate Pairing Join Marnie Old, one of the nation’s prominent sommeliers and wine authors, to explore the art behind pairing wine and chocolate. Pinot Boutique 227 Market Street 215 627-9463
