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Everybody loves the idea of pairing chocolate and wine, and with good reason. But the flavors of chocolate and wine aren’t always that compatible. And the culprit is the chocolate. Chocolate actually has very intense flavors. It’s chocolaty, of course, but it’s often simultaneously sweet, bitter, acidic and fruity. That means that a wine, especially a dry table wine as opposed to a sweet dessert wine, needs to be similarly intense if it’s going to pair well with chocolate.
PAIRING:
Rule #1, typically the wine should be at least as sweet, if not a touch sweeter, than the chocolate you are serving it with. Otherwise, the taste may quickly veer towards bitter or sour.
When pairing wines with chocolate, your best bet is to match lighter, more elegant flavored chocolates with lighter-bodied wines; likewise, the stronger the chocolate, the more full-bodied the wine should be.
Similar to “formal” wine tasting, if you will be experimenting with several varieties of chocolates, work from light to dark. Start with a more subtle white chocolate and end on a dark or bittersweet chocolate.
TASTING:
See - Observe the chocolate's sheen. A clean, shiny bar indicates a well-tempered chocolate.
Smell - Your nose is critical to tasting chocolate, which can exhibit over 600 natural aromas.
Snap - Break off a piece of chocolate and listen to the snap. Chocolate with a higher cacao percentage generally has more snap.
Savor - Place the chocolate on your tongue. Allow the chocolate to melt naturally. As you swirl it across your tongue, consider the progression of flavors, the balance of sweetness, the texture and the length of the finish.
CHOCOLATE:
The main types of chocolate are white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate. The composition of the mixture, origin of cacao beans, the treatment and roasting of beans, and the types and amounts of additives used will significantly affect the flavor and the price of the final chocolate.
White Chocolate - Chocolate made with cocoa butter, sugar, milk, emulsifier, vanilla and sometimes other flavorings. It does not contain any non-fat ingredients from the cacao bean and has therefore an off-white color.
Milk Chocolate - Sweet chocolate which normally contains 10-20% cocoa solids and more than 12% milk solids.
Dark Chocolate - Sweetened chocolate with high content of cocoa solids and no or very little milk, it may contain up to 12% milk solids. Dark chocolate can either be sweet, semi-sweet, bittersweet or unsweetened.
People across the globe love chocolate because of its naturally smooth, silky texture and its deliciously distinct sweet and rich flavor. Enjoy finding your favorite match with wine.
