WICKED TREATS
Try pairing wine with Halloween candy after the ghouls and minions have gone to bed,
Let’s think this through. It’s Oct. 31. You’ve organized the kids’ costumes, hunted for the perfect pumpkin and shopped for Halloween candy. You’ve carved the pumpkin, toasted the seeds and strung fake cobwebs. You’ve come home from work early, fed the family and taken the kids trick-or-treating. Or maybe you stayed in, jumping up like a human Jack-in-a-box every time the doorbell rang to give goodies to giddy kiddies.
It’s good work. Honourable work. And what do you get for your efforts?
Once the wee goblins are tucked into bed, steal your favourite treats from their loot and a glass of wine perfectly suited to your sugary reward. Yes, it can be done well and I’m about to prove it.
The treat: Hershey’s Cookies ’n’ Creme bar The wine: NV Barefoot Moscato (California) LCBO #234351$9.95
Scary how well that this wine, with its shock of sweet peach compote and mixed citrus, works with ittybitty Hershey’s Cookies ’n’ Creme bars. The creamy white chocolate complements the wine’s luscious character much like a scoop of vanilla Haagen-Dazs works with peaches poached in brandy.
And the dark chocolate cookie bits lend an earthy depth, crunch and — dare I say — almost grown-up con- trast to the experience.
The treat: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups The wine: 2013 Ghost Pines Chardonnay (California) LCBO #308122 $19.95
The languid, vanilla-bean appeal of this oaked Chardonnay adds depth to the chocolate while the baked apple and stone fruit centre sets off the peanut butter filling.
If you like dried fruit and nuts or peanut butter and jam — and who doesn’t, really? — you’ll like this polished pairing. It manages to be creamy, sweet, smooth and fruity while maintaining a thinly veiled haughtiness that’s a bit heady and still. The treat: Cheetos Crunchy Cheese Flavoured Snacks The wine: 2013 Carnivor Cabernet Sauvignon (California) LCBO #392647 $16.95
With aromas and flavours of black earth, bonfire and red meat, this wine is bloody good on its own but even better with a bag of day-glo Cheetos Crunchy Cheese Flavoured Snacks, which happen to be shaped like finger bones with the flesh mostly gnawed off.
The sharp cheddar and salted corn taste of this oddly addictive finger food matches the savoury depth of this Cabernet Sauvignon. And the wine’s name and label are just so Halloween.
The treat: Mars The wine: 2013 The Velvet Devil Merlot (Washington) LCBO #394742 $18.95
This well-made Merlot brims with cherries, chocolate and cream, making it a dead ringer for the sweet chewy goodness of a Mars bar. The nougat, caramel and chocolate work black magic with the smooth, berry-rich frame of the wine — creating a pairing of spellbinding textural and flavour harmony. This combo is devilishly good.
The treat: Kitkat The wine: 2013 Ménage à Trois Midnight (California) LCBO #434597 $17.95
Each saturated sip of this Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah and Petit Verdot blend offers a rambunctious rush of black forest fruit edged with cocoa powder and warm wood.
It’s an exciting wine that is dangerously good by itself but rises to new heights with that pile of paper-thin wafers separated by creamy whipped chocolate known as Kitkat that happens to shatter and melt simultaneously with each bite. Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? carolyn@carolynevanshammond.com