Definition: chocolate and wine 2

Châteauonline: With chocolate, do you recommend water or wine?
Robert Linxe: Wine, of course, but not just any wine. Pairing wine with chocolate is one of the most delicate of tasks. Let's not forget that chocolates vary in terms of astringency, bitterness and acidity.
This is a matter of "tailor-made" pairings.
COL: How important is wine to you?
R.L.: It's crucial. Our first shop, on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, took over from Caves Cosette, which was one of the five most beautiful wine cellars in Paris at the time, with its clay floor and 2.92-metre-high vaulted ceilings, completely free from any disturbance from the underground. We started with a stock of 17,000 bottles, which we quickly increased to 23,000. You see, I was also a wine merchant! And I can guarantee you, even today, that wine and chocolate go well together in this cellar, which has since become my laboratory.

COL: What are the main origins of chocolate and the wines that go with it?
R.L.: Purists essentially distinguish four noble origins:

• Venezuela and Ecuador, powerful and magnificent, to enhance an old Port or a Banyuls Grand Cru.
• The Caribbean, mainly Trinidad, very fruity to enhance sweeter ports.
• The Indian Ocean, in Madagascar, Sumatra and Ceylon, where chocolates have liveliness and a little acidity. Try more fruity wines, such as a young red Burgundy, a Vosne-Romanée for example.
• Finally, Africa, especially Ghana, where chocolate is essentially a base. You won't find the "African taste" on its own in chocolate. But be careful, you'll never get a pure vintage. When we talk about Trinidad, we add 5% from Venezuela. It's like the pinch of salt or the twist of pepper that chefs use to bring out the fireworks!

COL: Do you offer any special combinations for Easter eggs?
R.L.: Easter is a celebration for children. But parents are also entitled to enjoy good chocolate on this occasion. The task is complicated by the abundance of praline in these eggs. It's pure sugar! So you need a wine that's not too delicate, something more powerful, like a Banyuls or a Maury.
CO.: You mainly mention naturally sweet wines. Are there other options to pair with chocolate?
R.L.: All great wines can go with good chocolates. I tried a Château Latour with my Bacchus, a chocolate with raisins flambéed in aged rum. It was a great success. A rich, smooth Puligny-Montrachet would also be a good choice.
Try experimenting with all those great wines that we enjoy by the glass.

Channelwine tips:
Wines and chocolate - new pairings:
Armagnac, Vin Jaune from Jura, Sauternes, Californian Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. The list of wines that, in addition to port and Banyuls, pair well with chocolate is growing. By Claudine Abitbol:
Surprise! Port, Banyuls and Maury no longer have a monopoly on pairing with chocolate. Now, Vin Jaune from Jura, VDN Rasteau, Californian and Swiss wines and eaux-de-vie are discovering surprising affinities with the son of cocoa.

Pairings by Éric Boschmann (Chateauonline)
Our Belgian sommelier, who makes no secret of his passion for chocolate, shares his perfect pairings for "chocolate in all its forms"!
Water, natural sweet wines and dry white wines are just some of the best accompaniments for chocolate!
When, at the end of the 19th century, the founders of modern gastronomy such as Escoffier and Ali Bâb turned their attention to the pairing of wines and food, they defined a series of rules that are still in force today, for the most part.

The classic pairing with chocolate is water
Due to the bitterness of chocolate at the time, water was the only drink that could cleanse the palate. But you can forget about champagne. The acidity and effervescence of champagne go very badly with the sweetness of chocolate. It's Stalingrad for the taste buds!
Over the last fifteen years or so, a trend has emerged of pairing chocolate with wine. Except champagne, of course. The most obvious pairing today is chocolate and a naturally sweet wine. These are wines whose fermentation is stopped by adding alcohol, not by cooking, as some people believe. This is the basic principle behind the production of Banyuls, Rivesaltes and other port wines.
Often slightly oxidised due to ageing, these wines complement the flavours of food superbly, and the powerful alcoholic structure of the wine supports the richness of the cocoa. A nice piece of dark chocolate to nibble on with a small glass of Banyuls aged for a few years and you will understand what the word harmony means.
If you like to take risks, then try pairing dry wines with chocolate. A great exotic Chardonnay with a milk chocolate and Earl Grey tea praline. Happiness is there or very close by.
Without leaving the realm of naturally sweet wines and cocoa, these wines tend to develop chocolate aromas as they age. An old Rivesaltes or Banyuls, even more so than a port, will smell of bitter chocolate with hints of animal and leather, but above all chocolate. Even the colour of a Banyuls aged in oak for ten years will have chocolate tones.

Pairing wine and chocolate by Olivier Poussier, World's Best Sommelier:
The wine-chocolate pairing is reputedly one of the most difficult. We generally choose wines offering a palette of cocoa aromas, but also praline and roasted notes, echoing the bitterness on the palate of fine dark chocolates. The wine must also have a pronounced sweetness to counterbalance this and create a balance of harmony and contrast. For a chocolate fondant, nothing beats a fortified wine or a naturally sweet wine that has been aged for a long time in barrels or casks. Several appellations from different regions offer superb pairings. Vintage or rimage wines, which have not undergone long ageing in wood but are more marked by notes of red fruit, are also an ideal pairing when the dessert contains a cherry or raspberry coulis at its heart.

Advice from Emmanuel Delmas, consultant sommelier in Paris:
Chocolate is one of those pure delicacies that is absolutely wonderful. Like wine, it is interesting to taste because it offers a wide range of different flavours. Cocoa is a mixture of beans, sugar, milk and spices. There are many different types. Roasting gives it very different flavours. Its taste is so pronounced, powerful and concentrated that it is often very difficult to pair it with red wine, and even more so with white wine.
The sugar condensed in chocolate desserts has the effect of overwhelming the wine, strictly speaking.
While white wine, and more often red wine, can be full of cocoa aromas, typical of mature wines, such as a 1976 Pommard or an 88 Madiran, to name but a few, there are more opulent wines around us that offer precisely this roasted aroma. First and foremost among these are port wines.
Port is a naturally sweet wine. To put it simply, this wine is made from grape juice (called must), to which brandy or sugar is added during fermentation. This has the direct effect of stopping fermentation. These wines are then aged in barrels, without going into detail.
In their early youth, port wines reveal aromas of macerated red fruits, ranging from morello cherries to blackberries, with spicy notes. With age, these aromas transform into prunes, raisins, cocoa, coffee and roasted aromas. It is therefore this type of sweet wine that we will be looking at. Port, of course, aged 15 years, such as a late bottled vintage, or a vintage of around ten years. As vintage ports are elite wines, their prices often soar above £100, and even £1,000 for some.
In France, there are natural sweet wines similar to port, such as Maury, made from Grenache grapes, aged in glass demijohns and left out in the sun on the town square when the weather is fine. There is also Banyuls, as well as Rasteau in the southern Rhône valley.
Opt for mature wines with roasted aromas, such as 20-year-old Maury and old Banyuls, aged 20 to 30 years. Not to mention old Rivesaltes.
Near Seville, Spain, lies the territory of Xérez, home to a truly marvellous wine. One of the grapes used, Pedro Ximénez, produces a fortified wine that is an elixir of rare concentration, with around 400 grams of sugar per litre. PX, gran reserva, aged for a very long time, often from very old vintages, this wine is extremely dense in sugar and reveals aromas of prune jam and cocoa. The palate is overwhelmingly rich and opulent, but what a pleasure it is to finish with one last sip of this delicacy. To be drunk very sparingly, at the end of a meal.
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