Chocolate and wine you say?
Yes, believe it or not they are very good together. (I think chocolate and wine are the reason I have children…) Instead of the traditional chocolate dipped strawberries this Valentine’s Day, impress your loved one with chocolate and wine. It’s easy, all you need is some good quality chocolate (I prefer dark chocolate, but of course we all have our own personal tastes). I like a good dark chocolate and a great medium to full bodied Merlot. A good Merlot (pronounced “Mare-low”) often has wonderful flavors of raspberries, plums, black cherries, coffee, toffee and of course … chocolate. So good with chocolate, it’s almost sinful!
Merlot is a good red wine for red meats. It has the weight and fruit to match wine braised stews and roasts and great structure to pair well with rare grilled prime cuts of meat. If your special dinner consists of beef, lamb, venison or even duck or game birds, Merlot is the perfect match.
Start by opening the wine and letting it breathe. You can use a decanter if you like, or just leave the bottle with the cork out for about an hour. Dry red wines are always better when they are opened ahead of time. Make sure your chocolate is also at room temperature (chocolate from the fridge is only good at 2:00 in the morning). I like to buy large dark chocolate bars (or with burnt almonds) and break them into pieces on a plate. For a nice presentation, you can add fresh strawberries, or dipped ones if you are a real “choco-nut”.
Next, try some of the wine, then a piece of chocolate, then the wine again. This is a
wonderful desert by itself, or a nice treat before bed (if you have enough children, maybe not just before bed!)
Cabernet Sauvignon (pronounced “Cab-air-nay So-veen-yaw”) and Port, as well as Meritage (rhymes with “heritage”) are all good wine choices with dark chocolate. Meritage is always a blend of grapes from the Bordeaux region in France. The main red grapes are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot.
The best thing to do is experiment with the wines you like and have fun. Red wine is the best with dark chocolate, but you can try a “Late Harvest” with milk chocolate, which is also very good. I like and have tried the following BC wines with chocolate and all were fantastic!
1. Adora Estate Winery 2000 Maximus (a Meritage blend)
2. Gehringer Brothers 05/06 Dry Rock Merlot
3. Inniskillin Okanagan 03/04 Reserve Merlot
4. Noble Ridge Vineyard 2004 Meritage
5. Adora Estate Winery Late Harvest “Dea” (In Latin, means “Goddess”)
All of these BC wines are easy to find. The choices are really up to you! (Do you want more children or not?) No, that’s not it. The question is: How many BC wines will go with chocolate? The answer is: As many as you like!
Elaine Gowing is the owner of Divine Valley Wine Tour Company Limited. She is a native of the South Okanagan and is a graduate of the Wine Studies and Wine Sales and Marketing Programs at Okanagan University College. For more information on wine tours or wine consulting services, please call 1-888-846-6425 or e-mail Elaine at divinevalley@shaw.ca.
Happy Wine-ing!
DIVINE VALLEY
TOUR COMPANY Ltd.
Elaine Gowing - Owner