There are two means of partnering wine with classic chocolate: the technical and the hedonistic. So, leaving the best till last, let’s begin with the technical. I don’t agree with the notion that table wine can’t match great chocolate, although right now I’m only referring to classic plain chocolate of around 70% cocoa. Much more than this and the chocolate becomes a little too hot, spicy and bitter, while anything less means you’re simply not trying hard enough. You can’t indulge by taking shortcuts. There are a number of table wines with distinctive flavour connections to dark chocolate, including cabernet sauvignon and blends from Margaret River and Coonawarra, plus the grenache-based reds of the Banyuls appellation in the south of France. Margaret River cabernet delivers its own particular dark chocolate flavours, while the Coonawarra variant is frequently quite minty and deeply fruited. With fine, tight-knit tannins, each of these connects beautifully with dark chocolate. Choose young wines, rather than waiting for the more earthy and leathery development of older styles, since they don’t work nearly as well. The ripe, dark and pruney Banyuls wines typically reveal dark chocolate and mocha-like flavours, occasionally against a background of crystalline citrus fruit qualities. Try these with rich combinations of plain chocolate and orange. Given plenty of time in new American oak casks, which impart coconut ice, vanilla and dark chocolate-like flavours, many modern shirazes from the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale also work beautifully with chocolate. Again, the secret is to choose wines that are young, lusciously fruited and velvet-smooth. And now for the purely hedonistic marriage of chocolate and wine, and a recipe that works every time. Simply get yourself the best, oldest and rarest bottle of muscat or tokay from Rutherglen in northeastern Victoria you can find, and begin to experiment. Younger tokay also works well with sweeter milk chocolate, since it handles its plumper, fattier texture. In the event you can’t find either of these luscious elixirs, look instead for a Spanish East India or Pedro Ximines sherry. Then hold on tight!
