Wine & chocolate blog

Geoffrey Dean writes for The Times and is currently studying for WSET exams.

Wine and chocolate don't go together, right? Well, wrong actually. The view that the pair are not natural bedfellows has been well-subscribed over the years by many people, but an influential group of Bordelais are providing compelling evidence that the right chocolate and the right wine do indeed mix, and very nicely thank you. After being confronted in Bordeaux this week by certain perfect matches, your correspondent feels that the case must be put forward.

The wine-with-chocolate lobby are powerfully represented in Bordeaux and Barsac by a posse of women whose families own some very well-known Margaux estates. One group of four - Lise Latrille of Prieure Lichine, Anne-Francoise Quie of Rauzan-Gassies, Marie Laure Lurton of La Tour de Bessan and Nathalie Schyler of Kirwan - believe that pairing the right chocolate with their wine is a good way of demystifying the latter. "The very least we can do is come up with a few new ideas, and we've discovered a way of matching wine with chocolate," Latrille said. "It was an idea between friends and it's working well. We have some gourmet days coming up, involving our wine with particular chocolate and food, and the dates are fully booked out."

Schyler thinks the sort of raspberry-flavoured chocolate produced by Mademoiselle de Margaux, a chocolate maker in Margaux, is a good way to appreciate Kirwan's younger wines of two to four years old. The chateau's blends generally contains a third merlot, a suitable varietal to fit with most chocolate. She thinks Pauillac's more cabernet-based reds marry better with darker chocolate.

In Pessac-Leognan, Haut Bailly's resident chief, the talented Tanguy Laviale, has produced stunning pine-nut chocolates, sold at the vineyard, that pair well with older vintages of the chateau's grand vin, such as the 1998, now drinking beautifully. "Dark chocolate has strong tannins, and will fight with the tannins of a young tannic wine," Laviale said. "The roasted pine-nuts act as a bridge. There must not be any milk chocolate as it has too much fat to go with red wine."

But what of sweet white wines with chocolate? Chateau Biac, a beautiful estate on a hill overlooking the Garonne River in Entre Deux Meres, produces an incomparably good Cadillac AC that went brilliantly with the owner, Youmna Asseily's luxuriously rich chocolate pudding. In Barsac, Aline Baly, the energetic force behind Chateau Coutet, pairs a delicious dark chocolate mousse with some ginger in it that married effortlessly with the ginger notes often evident in older Coutet, like the magnificent 1989. Likewise, her white chocolate 'blondies' (the opposite of 'brownies') were ideal with a more younger vintage, such as the 1998. Mademoiselle Baly is such a go-ahead thinker that we drank Coutet with every course of a marvellous dinner she provided, including shell fish, chicken and cheese. Attitudes then are changing to the juxtaposition of food, wine and chocolate, and the French are cheerfully leading the way.

• Harpers Says...