Rules for Wine and Chocolate

Filed in archive Food and Wine on March 5, 2007

I have always loved to drink wine and eat chocolate. They are two of my favorite things, so how can they not be good together? It's like peanut butter and jelly! The go together sometimes. However, you do have to be a little careful about pairing them up, and I found these rules for combining your wine and your chocolate over at South African Wine News:

In matters of pleasure, chocolate and wine are ideal partners: the marriage of the supple tannins or elegant acidity of wines with meltingly smooth cocoa flavours. For those who have not yet acquired the taste should just breathe in the fragrance of a Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Tempranillo or Grenache. It is not rare for the bouquet of these wines, along with many other nuances, to hint of cocoa and chocolate.

Lago Luxury Chocolate has cooperated for many years with sommeliers, wine growers and chocolatiers, sampling wines and the chocolate best suited to accompany them. Now you too can let the most beautiful combination of flavours melt on your tongue.

Chocolate Meets Wine - Basic Rules:
High quality wine - high quality chocolate.
The higher the cocoa content in the chocolate, the drier the wine may be.
Bitter sweet or semi-sweet chocolates are best combined with red wine.
The higher the tannin content of a red wine the stronger the chocolate should be.
Wine first on the tongue, then the chocolate.