November 19, 2006

Wine and chocolate

Earlier this week I went to a wine and chocolate testing with my friend Jessica. We both love wine and chocolate so the both of them together could only be fantastic.

We tried five different kinds of chocolates together with five different wines. Instead of thinking about how the wines taste, smell etc we thought about how well the wine and chocolate mixed together. The chocolates we got were white chocolate, a brownie, dark chocolate, dark chocolate with orange rinds and a truffle with saffron and chilli.

Amarone della Valpolicella
I’m not very found of this kind of red wine from Italy. Too strong and spicy for my taste. But with white chocolate it became quite pleasant. Also with the dark chocolate with orange rind the taste became pretty smooth.

Moscatel de Setúbal 1997
Quite a sweet dessert wine from Portugal. Most chocolates went very well the wine, but the absolutely best one was the dark chocolate with orange rind. Together they tasted like a very smooth Cointreau. One of my favourite after dinner drinks.

Brown Brothers Liqueur Muscat
Dark brown dessert wine from Australia. I had no idea that the Aussies made dessert wines, and very a good one. All chocolates besides the white one went very well with this wine. Turned out to be my favourite from the whole tasting so yesterday I actually bought a bottle.


Cossart Gordon Madeira Malmsey 10 years old
Madeira from Portugal is never wrong, but together with the white chocolate it actually tasted sour. The result of being aged 10 years on oak barrels.

Clément Rhum Vieux
Rum from Martinique, where the alcohol just took over not no matter what chocolate I tried. Apparently the French rum isn’t as sweet at the Jamaican or Cuban ones, and is an acquired taste. The taste reminded my a lot of whisky, something that I’m slowly getting to like, so maybe I’ll like this in a 10 years or so. That’s how long it’s taken me like mild whisky...

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