The romance of chocolate and wine

As foodies, we’ve often wondered if Diwali could also be called festival of sweets, there’s so much of mithai everywhere, and these days, chocolates. Starting now, everyone’s sending each other bouquets of hand-crafted chocolates, gourmet chocolates, chocolates with nuts, blobs of chocolates wrapped in coloured paper....So how about planning a special soiree around chocolates paired with wine for the upcoming cards party. We got Sumedh Singh Mandla of the Grover Zampa Vineyards to spell out the rules for pairing chocolates with wines.White chocolate Match with a fruity-flavoured wine like Chardonay, Sparkling wine. These wines will pick up on the buttery, fatty tones of what isn’t always considered to be a “real” chocolate.Milk chocolate Dessert wines like Port pair very well with milk chocolate. The higher sugar levels in milk chocolate may cancel out any fruitiness in dry red wines, leaving them tasting bitter. Sweeter chocolate always needs sweeter wine, or the wine may taste tart.Dark chocolate Dark or bittersweet chocolate pairs well with Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Merlot. The higher cacao concentrations in these chocolates make them pair better with the stronger red wines with greater flavour.Bittersweet chocolate Because of the intensity of flavours, these need to be paired with stronger red wines with concentrated fruit notes.One for allChampagne or sparkling wines work with all chocolate types. It is a variety that compliments many flavours.Many fortified dessert wines work well across the chocolate spectrum as well.Rule bookSweet check The chocolate should not be sweeter than the wine you’re pairing it withQuality controlUse good quality chocolate for pairing with wine. Whether the chocolate is white, milk, or dark, its origins should be impeccable and its manufacture of a high quality standardColour codePair chocolate and wine according to the darkness of the chocolate. The general rule is that the darker the chocolate, the darker the wine. So, reds are ideal for dark chocolate.As told to Saadia S Dhailey