Chocolate and wine oh my!

 

 

 

 

I did a chocolate and wine pairing a week or two ago. It was great; I was amazed how the flavors worked so well together. I have paired chocolate and wine in the past but I haven’t worked with someone that is a wine expert. You have to be careful when pairing wine and chocolate especially when the chocolate is flavored. Sometimes the flavors clash or bring out the wrong notes in the wine so the wine can end up tasting sour.

 

Although I’m not a follower of reds for red meats whites for fish, you can use this “rule” as a guideline for wine and chocolate. The bigger the red the darker the chocolate, the sweeter the white the lighter the chocolate. Yet I love pairing our 78% habanera Mandarin espresso with white wine, you’d be amazed by this flavor profile. It’s also good with Spanish reds as they tend to have more spicy notes.

 

If you tend to have a lot of people stopping by during the holiday season you probably already keep a couple bottles of wine around. You might as well keep a few nice bars of chocolate that you can break up and offer with the wine. This will make your guests happy and you look like the host or hostess with the mostess.