This week, I answer a reader question: "I am making a chocolate fondant for Valentine's [day]. What wine would you pair it with ?"
Chocolate is one of the hardest foods to pair with wine, especially chocolate cake, and even more so when it's molten. Why you ask? Let's talk about pairing "rules" first.
Food and wine pairing
The first rule of wine pairing is that the wine should be sweeter than the food. This is almost universal, breaking this rule will bring out all the bitter flavours of the wine and will result in something more disappointing than having the same food separately from the wine.
The second rule is that the wine should be more acidic than the food, otherwise it tastes flabby.
A good way to pair food and wine is to match the body of the food with the body of the wine, so one doesn't overpower the other. This is why a heavy Cabernet is not a great pairing with flaky white fish, or Muscadet would disappear when drunk with a T-bone.
So what does this mean for chocolate fondant?
This calls for a sweet wine, with high acidity. Now, most sweet wines are fairly acidic so they don't taste disgustingly sweet, so that part is easy. And honestly, if you want to drink a Sauternes, Tokaji or even a sweet Sherry, it would not be totally out of place. In the same vein, a Demi-sec Champagne (demi-sec actually means sweet in Champagne) would bring the acidity and bubbles to the party without sacrificing the sugar content.
But chocolate is also full of polyphenols and bitter compounds, especially when made into fondant which calls for bittersweet or dark chocolate. This is where those pairings show their limitation: the fondant overpower your taste buds and the wine only plays a backup role.
I think the best pairing for chocolate is Banyuls AOC, especially in its Rimage version.
Banyuls
Banyuls is a village in France that sits on the Mediterranean coast a dozen kilometres from the Spanish border. It's in the heart of Roussillon and undeniably Catalan.
They make still wine in the area (red, rosé and white), and it will be labelled Collioure AOC after the other village in the production zone. But it is their fortified wine that is the perfect match for chocolate.
We discussed Port a few weeks ago, so I won't go into too much detail on fortified winemaking, but instead, I will highlight what makes Banyuls special.
First, it's made with Grenache which is ideally suited for this. Grenache is used all over the south of France (it is the backbone of Châteauneuf-du-Pape) and is high in natural sugars. This means a higher level of alcohol for still wines. But it’s also great for fortified wines where the winemaker wants to preserve some residual sweetness. On the other hand, Grenache oxidizes easily, which imparts the wine with cooked or dried fruit aromas as it ages, and is often combined with Syrah which is naturally reductive to balance out this process.
Second, the levels of fortification are much lower than those of Port. The grape spirit comprises 5% to 10% of the final alcohol level, compared to up to 20% for Port.
Styles of Banyuls
Most Banyuls AOC is made in an oxidative style (think Tawny Port) by ageing in oak barrels. Traditionnel is aged for at least 3 years, Hors d'âge is aged for at least 5 years, Rancio is reserved for the hors d'âge wines that have developed a taste of dried fruits and nuts. Some producers also use Tuilé to indicate an oxidized style, while Ambré indicates an oxidized wine made with white grapes.
Banyuls Grand Cru AOC is only produced in good years and ups the minimum amount of Grenache from 50% to 75%. They can be finished dry when labelled as such (sec/dry/brut) but are more commonly found sweet, and are always aged in oak for at least 30 months. 20, 30 years old Banyuls Grand Cru is common, I've seen 50 years old for sale too.
But oxidative styles aren't the only ones that are interesting in Banyuls. Sure there are white and rosé versions that are meant to be drunk young, but one style, in particular, is very distinctive: Banyuls Rimage.
Sometimes labelled Mise précoce, it's made in good years with grapes that would otherwise end up in a Grand Cru but that are instead aged reductively to preserve the fresh fruit aromas, and bottled very early. And unlike other styles, the fortification happens early on during the maceration before pressing (the technique is called mutage sur grains)
Rimage is the word for Vintage in Catalan. Vintage Port is made in a similar reductive style. But with Banyuls rimage, you can not only cellar it for decades but also drink it young. It doesn't have a harsh tannic structure that takes years to mellow and instead owes its body to the fairly high alcohol. And the red fruit / dark cherry aromas of a young Banyuls Rimage pairs wonderfully with dark chocolate.
So how about that chocolate fondant?
Banyuls remains a small production overall and remains virtually unknown outside of connoisseurs. My reader lives in Québec, and the SAQ always stocks a good selection of fortified wines including Banyuls. Look for organic producers like Parcé
For the rest of Canada, we are not so lucky. But keep an eye out because they periodically show up in various retailers. And they keep for a really long time, even if you don’t have a good cellar so I would suggest picking one up if you see one.
That said, if you can't find a Banyuls to go with your chocolate cake you can reach for an inexpensive Ruby port, or even a younger LBV port. It won't have the complexity or the elegance of a Banyuls, but it won't get overpowered by the desert.
That’s it for this week! If you want advice on a wine pairing or if you want to discover a specific region, feel free to reach out. And until next week, happy drinking!