The pairing most people get wrong, and four bottles that get it right
Chocolate is where most wine pairings fall apart, and the reason is arithmetic rather than taste: if the food is sweeter than the wine, the wine tastes sour and thin. That single rule explains almost every failed chocolate pairing. Dark chocolate at 70% or above is bitter enough that a dry red with ripe fruit can meet it; a milk chocolate dessert usually needs something genuinely sweet, which is where fortified wine earns its place. These four bottles run from the cheapest workable answer to the one the pairing was invented for.
Zinfandel-based Blend • $38
The Prisoner Red Blend is the affordable answer and the one to bring to a dinner party. Dark chocolate and toasted coconut are literally in the nose, alongside ripe cherry and blackberry coulis, and the palate is famously smooth and fruit-forward. Our recorded pairing is dark chocolate brownies. At $38 it does not ask you to think about it, which is a virtue with dessert.
Pinot Noir • $55
Belle Glos Clark & Telephone is our note for dark chocolate, and it is a Pinot Noir that behaves like a dessert wine without being one. Warm blackberry pie, cinnamon and sweet baking spice pour out of the glass, and the palate is chocolate-covered cherries and vanilla bean with a velvety, coating texture. It meets chocolate on its own terms rather than cutting against it.
Cabernet Sauvignon • $185
Chateau Montelena Estate with a dark chocolate tart is the grown-up version of this pairing, and it depends entirely on the chocolate being bitter. The wine is dense and powerful but held in check by fresh acidity, with cassis and black cherry under tobacco and cedar. Against a properly bitter tart the fruit reads as sweetness; against anything sweeter it would not.
Port • $200
W. & J. Graham's Quinta dos Malvedos Stone Port is what the chocolate pairing exists for. Dark chocolate is in our tasting note for the wine itself, alongside blackberry, kirsch and a tropical mango flicker, and the concentration means it is never out-sweetened by the dessert. Our recorded match is chocolate fondant. Polished tannins and taut acidity keep it from cloying, which is what separates good Port from the sticky reputation.
Check the chocolate before you choose the wine. At 70% cocoa and above, any of the first three will work and the Prisoner at $38 is the sensible buy. Below that — a milk chocolate dessert, anything with caramel — only the Port will survive it, because it is the only bottle here sweeter than what is on the plate.
Get our top pick — W. & J. Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos The Stone Port 2021 · $200Affiliate Disclosure: We may earn a commission from your purchase at no extra cost to you.
The background on what is in these bottles.