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Wine With . . . Chocolate Mousse
by Paul Lukacs and Marguerite Thomas
With Valentine's Day coming up, thoughts turn to roses, romance--and chocolate. To many minds, no food is sexier or more sumptuous. Chocolate, however, can be a difficult partner for wine. Since an amorous Valentine's supper requires just the right bottle, what should you choose?
To test different wines' affinity for chocolate, we decided to make a favorite dessert--chocolate mousse. We used both bittersweet and semi-sweet chocolates, and we blended them with whipped cream rather than egg whites, in order to make the dish as rich as possible. And since we wanted to highlight the chocolate flavor, we didn't add any of the traditional flavorings such as vanilla, liqueur or fruit zest. (See our recipe below.) We served the mousse in individual ramekins, with extra whipped cream on the side for anyone so inclined, and we opened twelve bottles of wine to try with it.
Two of the wines were dry--a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and a Paso Robles Zinfandel. We've heard some sommeliers, restaurateurs and writers promote dry red wine with chocolate; and while we've been skeptical, we wanted to see what we'd been missing. Two sips later, the answer was clear--nothing. We thought these were terrible matches, since the chocolate virtually obliterated the wines, making them taste unpleasantly bitter. Both wines had plenty of charm on their own. With the mousse, that charm simply evaporated.
All the other wines we sampled were sweet. Some proved too light. A late harvest Semillon couldn't compete with the deep, dark chocolate. Nor could a sparkling, cherry-scented Brachetto d'Acqui. Similarly, a five year old Sercial Madeira didn't have enough depth of flavor (perhaps a Malmsey would have worked better). To our surprise, other wines seemed too heavy. Two ruby ports, one non-vintage and one vintage-dated, seemed clunky, cumbersome and hot, as did a California rendition from Lake County.
The five wines that performed best with the mousse, though made from different grapes and in different styles, all displayed intense flavors without heavy textures. That proved important because the mousse itself was so thick and rich. No matter whether botrytised, late-harvested, or fortified, these wines all provided a refreshing "lift" with the chocolate, making us eager for another spoonful--and another sip.
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Les Clos de Paulilles, Banyuls (France) Banyuls Rimage 2003 (500 ml) (Imported by Martin Siinkoff)
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$22 |
Like most of the best matches in our sampling, this wine has an edge of bitterness that echoes that of the chocolate. With its deep chocolaty aroma and impressive depth of flavor, the Grenache-based wine is a natural partner for chocolate.
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Delaforce, Porto (Portugal) Twenty Years Old Tawny Port "Curious & Ancient" NV (Imported by Kobrand)
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$35 |
When the Tawny Port's classic and complex sun-kissed flavors of dried fruit meet the rich chocolate mousse, the idyllic result is a grown-up version of Raisinettes, that classic movie theater treat of raisins enrobed in chocolate.
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Royal Tokaji, Tokaj (Hungary) Tokaji Aszu 5 Puttonyos 2000 (500 ml)
(Imported by Wilson Daniels)
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$32 |
Lighter in texture and brighter in fresh fruit flavors than the other wines we liked with the mousse, the Tokaji proved a stupendous match because its dense and intricate web of botrytised flavors was in balance with the richness of the dessert--think ripe apricots dipped in dark chocolate, then multiply the sensation by a thousand.
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Yalumba, Barossa Valley (Australia) Museum Reserve Muscat NV (375 ml) (Imported by Negociants USA)
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$17 |
"When two people love each other they come together--WHAM!--like two taxis on Broadway," says Stella in Hitchcock's classic Rear Window. This is pretty much what occurs when the nutty, voluptuous, darkly sweet Muscat meets the rich, silky chocolate mousse.
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