Dessert
What wine goes with chocolate?
Chocolate is one of the trickiest pairing situations in wine. The rule is simple but often broken: the wine must be as sweet or sweeter than the dessert, or it will taste thin, harsh, and bitter. Dry red wine with dark chocolate is a pairing that sounds sophisticated and usually tastes terrible.
Cacao percentage matters enormously. A 70% dark chocolate is almost bitter and needs something with weight and sweetness. A 40% milk chocolate has more sugar and can work with lighter sweet wines. White chocolate is really just sugar and fat.
The best matches
Tawny Port
The definitive chocolate pairing. Tawny Port's dried fruit, walnut, and caramel notes echo the roasted, nutty qualities in dark chocolate. A 10-year Tawny with a good dark chocolate bar is one of those combinations that makes the case for dessert wine without any argument.
Banyuls
A French fortified wine from the Roussillon made from Grenache. It has a deep, chocolatey character of its own and is the classic French pairing for chocolate fondant or a brownie. Less known than Port but arguably a better match for intensely bitter chocolate.
Zinfandel (late harvest)
About this grapeA late harvest or port-style Zinfandel from California works with milk chocolate and chocolate-based desserts that have red fruit components - raspberry and chocolate, or cherry and chocolate.
Pedro Ximenez Sherry
The most intense match for the darkest, richest chocolate. PX Sherry is thick with raisin, fig, and molasses and pours almost like syrup. A small pour alongside an espresso ganache is a borderline-excessive experience that is worth having once.
What to avoid
Dry red wine with dark chocolate is the canonical wine pairing mistake. The tannin in the wine and the tannin in the chocolate compound to create a harsh, bitter, drying sensation. The fruit in the wine disappears entirely.
One thing to keep in mind
Serve the wine in a small measure. Rich dessert wines are high in residual sugar and often high in alcohol. You want contrast and complement, not a competition to see who finishes their glass first.
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