Once upon a time, someone — maybe Romeo or Juliet — decreed that chocolate is a hallmark of Valentine’s Day.
Surely that person meant well, but living by the sentiment that “every day should be Valentine’s Day,” I’m going to go out on a limb and say the same for chocolate: Who needs a special occasion to enjoy one of life’s best flavors?
Wines have also made great strides in the Valentine’s romance camp, but again, please don’t limit yourself to just one “holiday.”
It’s up to you, gentle wine aficionados, to experiment with the flavors.
Here are some white wines worth trying with chocolate: riesling (dry or semi-dry), viognier, pinot grigio (gris), pinot blanc and grenache blanc.
The candidates for chocolate could easily be white or milk chocolate, in particular those infused with flavors of citrus (think orange and lemon), lavender, cream, coconut, rose and ginger.
Ideal red wine-chocolate pairings run the lighter-to-heavier gamut from rosé to pinot noir and grenache through Gamay Beaujolais and mourvedre, to syrah and cabernet sauvignon and petite sirah. And port.
So it was in the spirit of pairing good wine and fine chocolate that four of us met about a month back. We are three writers by trade, and a chocolate professional: Jessica Foster, creator and owner of Jessica Foster Confections.
Writer Laura Sanchez, marketing manager of The Thornhill Companies, brought three wines from the J. Wilkes label: the 2013 Pinot Blanc, and the 2012 chardonnay and pinot noir, all from the Santa Maria Valley.
The Thornhill Companies owns Bien Nacido, Solomon Hills and French Camp vineyards, Bien Nacido Estate Wines, Central Coast Wine Services, Paso Robles Wine Services and several other wine labels, including J. Wilkes.
We paired the wines with several of Foster’s always decadent chocolate truffles.
Our consensus: The underlying sweetness of the lavender truffle gently married with the pinot blanc.
With chardonnay, while the flavors of the green tea-infused truffle danced on our tongues, an even better pairing was the coconut and cream truffle, whose richness balanced with the wine, aged in 50 percent stainless steel and 50 percent oak.
When we reached pinot noir, we faced some indecision, for while bites of both the Madras curry and cinnamon apple-infused truffles measured up to the wine, either the wine or the truffle countered the other.
And that’s the thing: Wine is a delicate beast when head to head with chocolate. Sugar, they say, always trumps the flavor nuances in wine.
And then, truth: We tried the pinot noir with Foster’s milk chocolate truffle of star anise and fresh thyme. On my tongue, the spices triggered an explosion of black pepper that magnified the elegance of the wine, creating a symphony of flavors.
Our vote: “These two really complement each other.”
But don’t take our word for it: Rustle up friends, a selection of good chocolate and open a bottle of wine or two. Today. Tomorrow. Every day.
— Laurie Jervis blogs about wine at www.centralcoastwinepress.com, tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.