At the shop where I work I led a sweet wine tasting earlier this week that was particularly interesting because the four wines we tried were so different. I brought four foods to mix and match with the wines, without having tasted the wines in advance, which led to a fun quasi-scientific evaluation that everyone took part in. It would be easy to try this at home. Here’s how it went.
The wines:
1. Hétsolo Tokaji Aszú 2000 (Tokay, Hungary; $38/375 ml)
The least sweet of the wines, with 3 puttonyos (the range of sweetness from 1 to 6 that Tokaji is measured by) and some of the honeyed apricot flavor of noble rot.
2. Cooper Mountain Vin Glace Pinot Blanc 2006 (Willamette Valley, Oregon; $30/375 ml)
An ice wine made by manual freezing, but nonetheless pure, with zingy acidity and a bright, intense grapefruit and guava flavor. Made from organic and biodynamic grapes.
3. Favaíto Moscatel do Douro NV (Douro, Portugal; $15)
A fortified wine (17% alcohol) made from Moscatel Galego grapes, a subvariety of Muscat with its typical heady floral aromas. The simplest wine of the four, but a customer favorite. The Portuguese like to spike their beer with this—and I can attest to the success of that cocktail!
4. Quinta do Noval Late Bottled Vintage Port 2003 (Douro, Portugal; $28)
Also a fortified wine (19.5% alcohol), this is an unfiltered LBV that provided a needed red wine counterpoint to the previous three whites. The differences are in the tannin and the earthy berry/fig/date/licorice flavors.
The foods:
1. Roasted almonds
These were almost too light in flavor to hold their own with the wines, with the exception of the Tokaji (1).
2. Blue cheese (Danish, but anything would work)
This was too pungent for the gentler flavors of the Tokaji (1), but was remarkably good with all of the rest of the wines, particularly with the high acidity of the Vin Glace (2) and the earthier flavors of the Port (4). Wines 2 through 4 were sweet enough to stand up to the sweetness of the cheese, which brings to mind the all-important Dessert Pairing Rule:
When pairing desserts and sweet wines, the wine should always be sweeter than the dessert. If you want to know why, read about adaptation.
3. Dark chocolate
Chocolate is notoriously difficult to pair with wine because of its sweetness and tannin. Milk chocolate is all but impossible to please (too sweet), but dark chocolate (greater than 50% cocoa) likes Port a whole lot. Port (4) has the sweetness and tannin to pair with a less-sweet dark chocolate.
4. Carrot cake
Super-sweet, with its cream cheese icing, and mildly spicy, this was beautiful with the Vin Glace (2), whose acidity lasered through the creamy sugariness, and with the Port (4), which nicely complemented the winter spices. Also fine with the Moscatel (3).
If you’re trying this yourself, you almost can’t go wrong: Think…who would complain about sweet wines and desserts in any combination?! But it can be very interesting to suss out the finer affinities of an assortment of goodies. Treat yourself—and let me know what you find out.
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