Dessert Wine Pairing With Walnut Chocolate Chip Pie
Pairing wine with food is something of an art from the outsider's perspective. Although there are good general-purpose rules that the average person can use, matching wines to food requires a solid knowledge of both food and wine, as well as the ability to mentally combine flavors and envision whether they'll work together, and how well. This is especially so with desserts containing chocolate and nuts, such as a walnut and chocolate-chip pie. Does this Spark an idea?
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The Challenge
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Desserts are difficult to pair with wine at the best of times because the sweetness and strong flavors in desserts can alter perception of the wine's own flavors and nuances. A dry wine can seem thin and harsh after a morsel of sweets. Dessert wines fare better, but the dessert itself can negate the wine's sweetness, revealing any shortcomings it may have. Walnuts, with their tannic astringency, can taste harsh when paired with a tannic wine. The combination of walnuts and the assertive flavor of semisweet chocolate makes for a difficult match.
Ice Wines and Late Harvest Wines
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Ice wines are made from grapes that froze on the vine before harvest. The water in the grapes freezes and when the ice crystals melt away the remaining juice is concentrated and higher in sugar. Late harvest wines are made from grapes left on the vine until they're overripe and extra sweet. Some are "botrytized," meaning they've been infected on the vine by a mold called botrytis, or "noble rot." This concentrates the sugars, similarly to ice wine. These wines have enough acidity and fruitiness to stand up to the pie, especially if made from Riesling or Gewurztraminer grapes.
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Port and Port-Like Wines
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When wine is made, the yeasts in the vat will normally digest the grape juice's sugars until the alcohol level gets high enough to kill them. However, if the winemaker deliberately increases the alcohol level by adding distilled spirits, the yeast will die and leave much of the original sugar in the wine. This is how the Portuguese make port, and how rivals elsewhere make port-style wines. Ruby port is aged in airtight conditions like other wines, while tawny port undergoes controlled oxidation, like sherry. Either style could be paired with this pie. Ruby port would better complement the chocolate, while tawny port would complement the nuts.
Banyuls
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Banyuls is a dessert wine produced in a small area of Languedoc-Roussillon, in the south of France on the slopes of the Pyrenees mountains. It's made from Grenache, Carignan and other grapes of the region, and by law must contain at least 50 percent Grenache. Banyuls, like port and its competitors, is made by adding distilled spirits to a partially-fermented wine. However, Banyuls is tastes fresher and fruitier than most port-style wines. It's the quintessential slam-dunk match for any dish containing chocolate, according to award-winning wine writer Natalie MacLean.
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References
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