Choose the right wine for a feast of chocolate

This week I’m thinking of two important things: indulgence and chocolate. I’m also thinking somewhat ahead, because chocolate is central to St Valentine’s Day and so, of course, is wine. Putting the two together may appear a high risk strategy but I have you covered. I just want to ensure that anyone who wants to try the combination has time to get hold of the right wine or wines.

Now, there are various ways of playing this. There are some red wines with deliberately exaggerated chocolate/coffee characteristics. It’s a big thing with some South African producers and let’s just say it’s more Dairy Milk than 85 per cent cocoa solids. There are some pretty sweet Malbecs, such as Dada, that are said to be good with chocolate but I can’t say, as I don’t like sweet Malbecs. However, if they float your boat, it might be worth experimenting.

I have had bitter dark chocolate with Amarone — amaro being the Italian for bitter — and it was fine, but not a match made in heaven. However, take the bitterness of Amarone and dial up the sugar to recioto levels and you have possibly the best match of them all. These rare red dessert wines don’t come cheap but with intense chocolate they are transformed from merely delicious to something altogether celestial. They deserve single estate chocolate, not a KitKat.

I remember someone trying to persuade me that Barolo goes well with chocolate but, to my palate it tastes horrible.

Really good chocolate has tannins, of course, and putting it with a dry, tannic wine is madness in my view. Unless you’re really into tannins, perhaps.

No, tannic chocolate needs sweetness. The French tend to look to porty reds like Banyuls and Maury with their crèmeux au chocolat (lucky them!) while we Anglophones have traditionally gone for port itself. A modest enough tawny is a great partner for chocolate dishes — one that’s still rosy in colour but with a brickish shade on the edge; its candied peel flavours are particularly apt.

But let’s not forget the brown-sugar-X1,000 Pedro Ximenez, whose sole function has traditionally been to sweeten sherry; it can even tackle milk chocolate. And Muscat, of course, with this week’s recommendation lifting a basic chocolate mousse to dizzy heights.