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With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, my thoughts turn to chocolate and how to correctly pair it with food.
Quite often, I see professionals pair dry red wines with chocolate-based desserts. It was a trendy thing to do at one time, but I thought most savvy sommeliers and chefs had realized this was a mistake: Neither the dry red wine nor the chocolate win out in this situation.
In his book Perfect Pairings, esteemed master sommelier Evan Goldstein notes, “Really, never mind what you have heard… Most chocolate is simply too sweet for any dry red wine, and it never pairs well with the austere wines of Bordeaux.”
The only time it's wise to pair any libation with chocolate is when it enhances the inherent qualities of both. In his book The Taste of Wine, renowned wine scientist Emile Peynaud writes, “Thanks to the astonishing diversity of wine styles, one can always be sure of finding one that will go with a given dish with a few exceptions.” Chocolate is one of these exceptions. Peynaud remarks that chocolate desserts—particularly “chocolate mousse, above all”—are “to be avoided” with certain wines.
Consider some of the reasons that wine and chocolate—which are too similar in many respects—can make a poor pairing:
• Both are concentrated sources of flavonoids, which give wine its structure, chocolate its bitterness, and both their deep red-purple color. (Yes, there's a red-purple color in chocolate, though it's far more visible in unprocessed cacao). Most of the flavonoids that give cacao its astringency dissipate during fermentation, but enough remains to give finished chocolate a slight edge. As a result, dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa liqueur and relatively little sugar has a bitterness and is an acquired taste, in much the same way that structured red wines are for most people.
• Both are high in tannins. Cocoa powder contains more tannin than black tea. Tannins are part of what make a wine taste dry. They bind to the proteins that help make your saliva viscous, pulling those proteins out and making your mouth feel dry. Salivary glands constantly replenish saliva, but the tannins have a cumulative effect over short periods of time. If the tannins in your bite of chocolate have just stimulated some of your salivary proteins, then your next sip of wine will induce more proteins and make your mouth feel drier than if you'd just sipped the wine and skipped the chocolate.
• The acidity in wine doesn't do chocolate any favors. Tannins feel more astringent in acidic environments. Chocolate is slightly acidic, but wine is far more so, and the presence of acidic wine in your mouth may make the chocolate taste more astringent. Both chocolate and red wine are bitter, astringent, and sour. Together, they reinforce those qualities—not a good thing. White wine tends to be even more acidic than red wine. Together, the chocolate will taste even more bitter and the wine more sour.
• Sugar presents its own problems. A sweet chocolate paired with a less sweet wine will make the wine taste sour by contrast. Port and dark chocolate are a classic, delicious combination, in large part because most Port is about as sweet as most dark chocolate. Milk chocolate doesn't work as well because it tends to be significantly sweeter. A lush fruit bomb Zinfandel that comes in at 16 percent ABV might have enough sweetness to stand up to a plain 80 percent bittersweet chocolate, and that combination actually works to some degree. Chocolate is one of the few foods with enough body and sweetness to stand up to a wine that big. Just don’t be surprised if that pretty, balanced 13 percent ABV Merlot that you drink with your chocolate mousse tastes like vinegar after a bite of the sweet dessert.
• Temperature is a key consideration. Good chocolate is best appreciated when you allow it to melt in your mouth. In fact, chocolate's often tempered, so it melts as close to body temperature as possible. Allowing the chocolate to melt, rather than simply chewing it, allows more of the chocolate to come into contact with the taste receptors on your tongue—and flavors, in general, are enhanced at warmer temperatures. Even a red wine cooled to cellar temperature is significantly below body temperature and will cool the interior of your mouth, causing your next bite of chocolate to take longer to melt, slowing the release of its flavors. A nicely chilled glass of white wine is even worse.
If you still plan to pair chocolate with wine, however, keep in mind that the sweetness and body of the wine should be as great—or slightly sweeter—than the chocolate or dessert. A sip of wine may help wash away some of the heaviness of a rich chocolate dessert between bites, but a less robust wine will almost certainly taste thin by comparison.
Here are a few pairings to consider:
• For a white chocolate, try a Moscato d’Asti.
• A sweet sherry is perfect with a milk chocolate.
• Match a bittersweet chocolate with Malmsey Madeira, Tawny Port, or an Italian Vin Santo.
• For very dark chocolate, a Cognac, Armagnac, or Single Malt Scotch will balance the chocolate’s intensity.
• For chocolate desserts that have a fruit component, a Late-Bottled Vintage Port is ideal.
Sears is a sommelier at Sears Wine and Spirits Catalogue. He can be reached at searscatalogue@gmx.com.
