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Step 1
Serve your dessert wine solo. The easiest way to pair this type of wine with food is to serve it as the meal is wrapping up. Dessert wines don't necessarily need a food to compliment them, but can compliment an entire meal by being served last.
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Step 2
Make the dessert wine the sweetest serving. Never pair a dessert wine with a dessert food that is sweeter than the wine. For example, avoid serving a French apple tart with a subtly sweet wine. An easy to way to solve this problem is to serve the wine directly after the dessert, rather than with it.
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Step 3
Pour your port wines with walnuts. Most ports--a type of dessert wine--go well with walnuts because walnuts are highly tannic. The tannins in the nuts are overshadowed by the port's sweet taste.
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Step 4
Slice up squares of blue cheese with honey-flavored dessert wines. Desserts with distinct notes of honey, such as muscats or ice wines, are nicely complimented by blue cheeses, such as Stilton or Roquefort.
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Step 5
Take advantage of the wonders of sauternes. Sauternes (pronounced saw-turn) is the cream of the crop when it comes to dessert wines. The beauty of this wine is its versatility. Pair sauternes with buttery, salty or fatty foods for a delicious food experience. For example, if you went over budget purchasing the bottle (sauternes is expensive), pair it with fried chicken. Serve at the end of a meal to enjoy its mixture of acidity and fruit flavors. Or, serve with something as simple as toasted walnuts.
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Step 6
Use the famous and reliable combination of dark chocolate and sherry. If all else fails, two ounces of sherry and a few morsels of dark chocolate is a foolproof dessert wine and food pairing.
