Wine & Chocolate: Talk about romantic foods…

Wine and chocolate are two of the most romantic foods in the world. And with Valentine's Day right around the corner it got us thinking of fun ways to indulge in both.  Include your special someone or impress your girlfriends next time it's your turn to bring dessert.  Wine & chocolate can be a perfect match and a fun way to experiment with wine and food Heartpairings. Both wine and chocolate can be very complex on their own, so keep it simple with three basics: 1) The wine you select must be perceived as sweeter than the chocolate 2) Pick a wine that's big enough to cut through The chocolates richness 3) Look for flavors in both that are similar to one another. *For example bittersweet or dark chocolates need a strong red wine to balance out the bitterness in the taste.  These chocolates are the richest & most intensely flavored containing the least amount of sugar, and the greatest amount of cacao.  Zinfandels often seem to be the obvious go-to when it comes to pairing wine with bittersweet & dark, but a Shiraz or a Spanish Grenache would also be a suitable companion. *Milk chocolate, on the other hand, contains a small amount of cacao & is the sweetest, remember rule #1 and choose a wine sweeter wine than chocolate.  Pairing it with something less might leave your mouth tasting like a rubber band. A good match might just be a sweet and tasty tawny port, but if you find the right bottle of pinot noir, you also won't heart-wine-valentine-500be disappointed. *White chocolate, though not a true chocolate due to its absence of cacao, is a super-sweet blend of sugar, milk and cocoa butter. A good pairing would be Champagne, or a muscato. Other good pairings for white chocolate would include Rieslings and Gewürztraminers. To help you get started check out this great list of wines under $20.  Get pairing.

http://wine.about.com/od/byprice/tp/ValueWinesunder10.htm