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Wasn’t long ago if you’d mentioned wine and chocolate, I’d
be thinking Mars bars and Mogen David?
Are you out of your mind? Turns
out I was out of mine.
Pairings don’t always work.
Spaghetti and caramel sauce.
Teenagers and cars. Conversations and narcissists. Angela, the high school cheerleader and …but
anyway, you see my point.
Couple of weeks ago, I got an invite to an evening of chocolates
and wines. I’ve come a long way since
the Hersey days. Much more of a
sophisticate, conjuring up images of Nutella slathered on pale skin, wine
delicately poured into navels. Should
have known, in my world, dreams and reality live two turbulent oceans, and a
mountain range apart.
You mean actually eating
chocolate and drinking wine? Well, knock me down! Why that’s like pairing maple waffles and
hamburgers….wait a sec, a popular fast food chain already tried that. Ok.
It’s like pairing scotch and root beer.
Damn, one of my friends drinks that all the time. Well, hell!
Got it! That would be
like pairing me with a fat woman with bad breath! Uh oh.
I remember one time in my misspent youth….hate to change the subject,
but let’s wander back onto firmer footing:
chocolate and wine.
Ever heard of Wein
Hauck? Small place in an off street
near the old market in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
http://www.wein-hauck.de
If you get the chance, drop in between 2 and 6:30 p.m., weekdays
except Monday. Don’t take a chance. Go to the web site for exact times.
Often Wein Hauck
offers off the beaten vineyard events.
Music and wine. And in this case,
chocolate and wine.
Even if there’s no special event, the small shop intrigues
me and tingles my taste buds.
I picture wine tasting as a blind date, except you don’t have to buy
dinner, and you can move on to something more attractive and still call
yourself a gentleman.
I thrive on small shops, especially when it comes to
wine. Hole in the wall bodegas in
Spain. Gordon’s Wine Bar in London. (http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2015/02/gordons-oldest-wine-bar-in-london.html)
If you’re carefully selective, you'll find small shops are friendlier
and their survival rests on every single bottle they sell. Wein Hauck is a prime example.
The owners search for wines themselves, wander the vineyards, chat with
the vintners, and only sell the best they can find. French and German bottles dominate Hauck’s
cellar, but they also offer a few Spanish delights, as well as some very
interesting spirits. Picked up a few bottles of a bubbly and satisfying Crémant
from Alsace, just a couple of weeks ago.
A jewel.
For the pairing on this evening, we tread both Italian and
French vineyards. Here’s a glance at
what our hosts served:
Prosecco (Maschio dei Cavalieri), with 60% Chocolate,
flavored with caramel and Fleur de Sel.
2014 Côte de Gascogne,
with another 60% chocolate, this one with ginger.
Our molars coated with chocolate, our palates already well-graped,
we moved on to the red wines:
2011 Cabardes, with 60% chocolate and mildly spicy red
peppers.
2011 Vacqueyras, with 70% chocolate from Sao Tomé.
You want to know
the bottomline, right ? All the
wine pairing worked supremely well, but none except for the Prosecco, would I
choose to drink without the chocolate.
Sounds like the wines were not up to snuff. Nothing farther from the in vino veritas. These wines
paired exactly correctly with the accompanying chocolates. That, my friends, is difficult.
That’s also the
magic of pairing that goes beyond red for red meat and white for chicken and
seafood. Start talking chocolate and
wine and the red and white rules take a nose dive. Same goes for wines and cheeses.
In my own late
night excursions into the wonders of the
grape, I’ve found sturdy white wines, especially some of the Spanish drys,
stand up well to the heavy flavor of beef. Similarly, I’ve tasted reds just perfect for a
particular cheese.
All in all,
Friday night at Wein Hauck led to a solid evening of tasting and
chatting, but standing around sipping wine and eating chocolate….how bad could
it be ? Our cordial hosts took us
on a tasting tour that opened my eyes and brightened my evening. The Wein Hauck selections paired remarkably
well, but had I sipped them without chocolate I would have moved on. Neither my palate nor my mind had made the
adjustment to chocolate. Just another
point in favor of a small, quality wine shop that knows how to blend flavors
and select the best wines for each occassion.
Wein Hauck is adept at
specializing rather than trying to blanket the planet. This small shop
is a wonderful place to ferret out good wines at reasonable prices. They also offer their remarkable expertise in
leading the novice to experience some out of the way stops on the wine road.
Want to know a
bit more about unusual pairings? Here's a great place to start. Check
out this blog from my good friend, Laura.
http://laurauncorked.com
Look for upcoming
wine events and in the meantime, stop into Wein
Hauck. Tell them the guy with the broad
grin and the chocolate moustache sent you.
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