 Want to seduce someone
this Valentine's Day? Just share a glass of wine (or three) with your sweetheart.
Wine is liquid sensuality: Its heady bouquet stimulates the appetite and
its velvet caress soothes that desire. What other drink is described as
both 'voluptuous' and 'muscular'? And when you pair wine with the mouth-coating
luxury of chocolate, the combination is impossible to resist.
The creamy flavors of chocolate go best with sweet, full-bodied, high-alcohol
wines. I suggest wines to complement 50 chocolate dishes in my online
matching tool at www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher.
Just click on "desserts" to find pairings for chocolate mud
pie to chocolate cheesecake.
Here are my Top-Ten wine and chocolate matches:
1. Dark Chocolate and Banyuls, France
2. Chocolate-Covered Biscotti and Recioto della Valpolicella, Italy
3. Chocolate-Orange Cake and Liqueur Muscat, Australia
4. Chocolate with Nuts and Tawny Port, Portugal
5. Milk Chocolate and Tokaji, Hungary
6. Bittersweet Chocolate and Amarone, Italy
7. Chocolate-Dipped Fruit and Icewine, Canada
8. Chocolate Ganache Truffles and Sauternes, France
9. Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake and Framboise, California
10. Chocolate Hearts with Cream Filling and Cream Sherry, Spain
My online food-and-wine matcher doesn't just focus on chocolate. The
interactive tool has thousands of wines to pair with any dish: meat, pasta,
seafood, vegetarian fare, pizza, eggs, cheese and dessert. You simply
choose the food or wine from a drop-down menu to get the pairing suggestions.
There are also lots of recipes for those planning a romantic meal.
The matcher is updated regularly with new dishes and wines from the 83,000-plus
readers who subscribe to my free e-newsletter, which offers tips on how
to buy, cellar and serve wine.
In my latest book Red, White and Drunk All Over, I discuss how
to match food and wine in greater depth, including wines for a multi-course
dinner. There's also a chapter with advice on pairing wine with five challenging
foods: chocolate, cheese, spicy dishes, vegetables and fast food.
Got a dish or a wine to stump me? Just e-mail me via my web site and
I'll suggest a match for you.
Natalie Maclean
www.nataliemaclean.com
Natalie Maclean is a well-known Canadian wine and food writer, speaker,
judge, author and an accredited sommelier. She is a four times winner
of the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards for her writing
about drinks, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award.
She has written Red, White and Drunk All Over,a highly acknowledge book
that focusses a lot on food and wine matching and makes it a peasureable
and simple exercise to heighten the culinary experience - Editor
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