The wine should be sweeter than dessert
Many people who first taste eiswein (also known as ice wine) develop an instant liking for the wine styling. They almost immediately think that the wine would be good as a dessert wine. A good example is the 2008 Schlink Haus Eiswein ($50). Rich fruit traits of mango, papaya, pineapple, citrus and apricot show well in the aromas and flavors of this nice wine.
The wine itself is a good dessert. Most eiswein offerings do not match well with very sweet desserts. When serving this styling at the end of a meal think of the wine itself as the sweet and complement it with lightly salted nuts, cheeses and fruit salad. If you want to serve a cake then do an angel food cake or an orange crunch cake and stay away from heavy chocolate cake.
Poached pears match very well with the 2010 Remy Panier Vouvray ($10-15). Use a bit of the wine to poach the pears and serve the rest with the dessert. Honey, pear, apple and melon traits abound in this nice wine. Not a sticky sweet wine but rather more refined and gentle. This wine will also go well with pecans and other nuts along with soft and creamy cheeses.
Chocolate is a favorite of most everyone and quite a few desserts are created with chocolate as one of the ingredients. It can be tricky if your host asks you to bring a dessert wine to serve with a chocolate dessert because of the different kinds of chocolate.
White chocolate is really cocoa butter and lighter sweet wines match well. Milk chocolate is mild and contains milk and sugar that can mask the traits of many wines. Tawny port is a good match with milk chocolate desserts. Some chocolate desserts are made with ingredients like mint, nuts, fruit, caramel, coffee or even hot peppers. You need to know if any of these are in the dessert or the wine pairing may not match.
Rich dark chocolate desserts open a flood gate of wines that can be used to accompany and complement the sweet treat. Tawny port and ruby port should both be considered and quite often this is my choice. Don’t overlook dryer wines such as cabernet sauvignon, malbec or brodeaux. The intensity of the dark chocolate demands an equally intense dry red to match well.
The term dessert wine can mean many different things to people. To choose the right wine you must first define the dessert. If you need help with dessert wine pairings just let me know and I would be glad to help. [email protected].
Write to Patrick Gerl at The News-Star, 411 N. Fourth St., Monroe, LA, 71201; or email questions, suggestions and comments to patrick@tonores wine.com.
Bill & Sheila’s Wine
_____________________________________________________________________
If you require a high quality printout of this article, just click on the printer symbol next to ’Share and enjoy’, and we will do the rest. This site is hosted by (click on the graphic for more information)
Return from wine to Home Page
If you want to increase your site popularity and gain thousands of visitors – check out these sites THEY ARE FREE. Spanishchef more than doubled its ‘New Visitors’ last month simply by signing up to these sites:
Follow spanishchef.net on TWITTER
