When it comes to some of our favorite things in life, Chocolate and Wine are high on our list. Unfortunately, they can be a challenging combination to pair, or at least to pair well! For example- if you are sipping on a dry red wine and take a bite of 60% dark chocolate, the wine will taste very bitter due to the different types of tannins in your mouth from the chocolate and the wine.
The Modest Cellar actually partnered with a local wine club here in Houston and hosted a food and wine pairing event at our house for our closest wine loving friends. One of the parings was with chocolate and everyone loved it!
We highly recommend throwing a food and chocolate pairing party and thought we’d share our recommendations with you!
- Chardonnay- Pair with white chocolate.
- Pinot Gris- pair with an orange zest milk chocolate.
- Riesling- pair with milk chocolate.
- Sauvignon Blanc- pair with white chocolate- maybe even something citrusy if your wine has citrus notes in it.
- Pinot Noir- another good pairing for white chocolate, or a caramel filled milk chocolate would be great!
- Merlot- we’d recommend a dark chocolate for Merlot because it won’t be as dry of a red wine.
- Zinfandel- you could do a dark chocolate with this one as well, but a semi-sweet chocolate would be best.
- Cabernet Sauvignon- a fun pairing here would be a cherry infused non-sweet chocolate!
- Ruby Port- pair this with a nice creamy milk chocolate.
Generally:
- White chocolate is the sweetest of the chocolate options so you should pair those with sweeter white wines or lighter red wines, like pinot noir and Beaujolais.
- Milk chocolate is the easiest one to pair as it falls in the middle of sweet and tannic.
- Dark chocolate is the hardest to pair because of the tannins from the chocolate will not blend well with tannins in red wine. You need a full-bodied wine to avoid leaving a sour taste in your mouth, like a Merlot or Zinfandel.
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