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Pairing Wine and Chocolate, Challenge Accepted! (#WinePW)

 

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This month, Linda from My Full Wine Glass has challenged the #WinePW group to find those ‘difficult’ to pair foods. You can read her invitation post here. We’ll be chatting about this on Twitter on June 12 at 11 am EST / 8 am CST / 6 pm Istanbul. Whether or not you wrote a post for the event join us! See what creative pairings the group came up with and chime in with your discoveries!

For some people (myself included) any pairing brings on insecurity and nervous sweats. I do not like food pairing. And yes, I see the irony in being part of not one, not two, but four food and wine pairing blogging groups! Throw in some of those tricky to pair foods like asparagus, broccoli, artichokes etc. and it’s full nervous breakdown time!

When this topic came up I was not sure what I wanted to do…then inspiration!

Podisi – Bean to Bar

While on a journey to become a chocolate taster, Belgin Durusoy experimented with roasting cocoa beans and making her own chocolate with the simple addition of sugar. For her, it was a revelation and the beginning of a new career. Durusoy now makes bean to bar chocolate in Turkey under the company name Podisi. She sources beans from a variety of countries and, in addition to making single origin bars, she creates a variety of interesting flavors. Blueberry-chili; sage with lime butter and lemon; lemon, rose, and marzipan; cinnamon-orange, these are just a few of her flavors.

I saw on her Instagram that she did a pairing of some of her bars with Likya Şarapları wines and felt inspired to make some of my own pairings!

Sage, Lime Butter, & Lemon paired with Saranta Chateau Murou Sauvignon Blanc

The wine: Bright medium straw in the glass with gold tones. The nose. The nose!!! Oh. My. Goodness. It was a little shouty in the way that New Zealand Sauv Blanc can be but I love their wines so I did not mind. This one grabbed its tropical and citrus fruit flag and waved it vigorously. Gooseberry, pomelo, and lime, along with flecks of quartz and flint so often found in the white wines from this region. In the mouth it was clean, linear, mouthwatering, and very dry. The wine sang with those fruits from the nose and added flourishes of peach blossom. Loooong finish.

The chocolate: Is…well like chocolate. I really wanted to love all the bars, especially this one. Honestly though, while the chocolate is very nice, the flavor additions in all the bars were, for me, lacking in intensity.

The pairing: That said, the wine actually brought out the flavors of the chocolate and while the sage was still gone begging, I could definitely taste the lime and lemon.

Citrus, Lavender, & Marzipan with Likya Fersun

The wine: Fruity and spicy upfront, breathing time allowed individual aromas to come to the fore and shine. Pomegranate and blackberry mingle with violets and black currant, bay, and tomato leaves. Black tea, cracked pepper, and cigar box add depth and savory aromas. Light-bodied with a mere 12% abv (low alcohol reds are unusual here). Vivid acidity made the wine sing with spicy flavors overlaying strawberry, pomegranate, and vegetal notes.

The chocolate: Deep and rich flavor with hints of the citrus but I got neither lavender nor marzipan

The pairing: Great big pairing yes on this! The wine really highlighted the citrus and fruitiness of the chocolate while the chocolate lent an earthiness to the wine it didn’t have before.

Brown Butter & Fleur de Sel with Kuzeybağ Kösetevek

The wine: The Kösetevek poured a beautiful, plummy purple with a veritable orchard of fruit. Intense aromas of blackberry, plum, black mulberry, and cherry with hints of mushroom and moss swirled out of the glass. On the palate it presented with a medium body and alcohol (13.5% abv), lively acidity, and low-medium “friend zone” tannins. If the nose exhibited an explosion of freshly plucked red and black fruits; the palate offered a more retrained character with subtle threads of white pepper.

The chocolate: Rich with notes of caramel but the salt influence was pretty pale

The pairing: Huge yes on this pairing! They both complimented each other so well drawing out additional richness and depth of flavor.

Other combinations that worked well were:

Pink Pepper & Strawberry with Ma’Adra Pinot Noir

Raspberry, Rose, & Lemon with Uçmakdere Firuze Cabernet Sauvignon

Brown Butter & Fleur de Sel with Tasheli Patkara

I still have several different flavored bars of hers in a stack on the table next to my desk that I haven’t had a chance to play with yet but am so looking forward to playing with them!

Which foods do you find difficult to pair?

Don’t forget to check out what triumphs with tricky and difficult to pair foods the other #WinePW crew members found!

• Wendy at A day in the Life on the Farm asks “Difficult? Yes….Impossible? No”
• Camilla at Culinary Adventures with Camilla goes for “Over the Top Taco Night: Pork Carnitas + 2012 Sokol Blosser Big Tree Block Pinot Noir”
• Andrea at The Quirky Cork is “Pairing Wine and Chocolate, Challenge Accepted!”
• Terri at Our Good Life has “Wines to Drink with Ramen”
• Deanna at Asian Test Kitchen advises “Keep Calm and Curry On with Mudgee Red Wines”
• Gwendolyn at Wine Predator gives us “A+ Pairings for Asparagus, Arugula, and Artichokes with organic wines from Alsace, Australia, Austria, and Argentina”
• Linda, your host, at My Full Wine Glass offers “Three wines for three ‘difficult’ foods”