3 Tips for the Perfect Twosome: Chocolate and Wine                                                   

Chocolate is the confectionery match to wine. And when you learn that both wine and chocolate are actually made in a very similar way – involving fermentation through the addition of the same type of yeasts – then their innate relationship does not come as a surprise!

Despite these striking similarities, it’s somewhat challenging to pair wine and chocolate together.

Here are 3 facts to lubricate your choco-vino love connection;

Tip # 1: Keep in mind to select wine that’s sweeter than the selected chocolate or chocolate-themed treat, otherwise, the wine can end up tasting bitter. With both wine and chocolate carrying their very own robust natural traits, they can often find themselves engaged in a fierce palate power play, each vying for dominance. The sweeter, fortified wine helps the two settle into some semblance of amiable balance.

Tip # 2: Opt for similar style (flavor notes) or look for contrasts that complement well. Try pairing three different cacao percentages (from 60 percent to 90 percent) with three different wine varietals (from lightest to heaviest). Try to match lighter, more elegant flavored chocolates with lighter-bodied wines, furthermore, the darker the chocolate, the richer and bolder the wine varietal should be.

Also, the darker the chocolate the more dry, tannin structure it will display.Pairing this darker chocolate up with a wine that also flaunts stouter tannin framework, will balance out the wine’s tannins on the palate as well as enable more of the vinous fruit to show through.

Tip # 3: Taste from light to dark chocolate. While exploring a number of ranges of chocolates, work from light white delicious chocolate with milk chocolate and end on the drier notes of dark chocolate. This allows you to taste the more subtle flavors before your palate is overwhelmed by the strongest flavors as well as avoids losing out on the refined sweet experiences found in even more delicate delicious chocolate selections (as well as wine).

As always, when pairing any food and beverage – no matter how odd the matchmaking is (like Whisky and Chocolate), if you enjoy the flavor combination, it’s a good pairing.

At AYZA we would love to help you to start with these 3 pairing ideas.

1. WhiteOut
wine: riesling, moscato d’asti
chocolate: love bug, serties fruits rouges, macarolat los ancones

2. Milky Way
wine: garnacha, cotes du rhone, chocolate shop
chocolate: alize hearts, got milk, coconut tropical, macarolat ganache cafe

3. Dark Magic
wine: cabernet sauvignon, bordeaux, shiraz, fonseca bin 27
chocolate: 80% dark, espresso, grand cru, bin 27, noce (walnut), serties mendiant

Experiment and Explore!