So there I was with six piles of chocolate in front of me. The whole office levitated with the deep, rich, primordial smell of cacao. Really, you could have fainted from desire.
Also on the table were five Champagnes.
I could have dived right in. I wanted to dive right in. Delayed gratification isn’t usually my thing. But I was worried.
Worried because pairing Champagne and chocolate together didn’t immediately sound right. Yes, they’re both hedonistic pleasures. But pair one with the other? I thought the combo might end up having all the charm of an espresso with broccoli.
Which just goes to show how wrong you can be. It turns out Champagne and chocolate are a fascinating match. Especially certain chocolates and certain Champagnes.
Here’s how I conducted a Champagne and chocolate mega-tasting in my office, and what we discovered. By the way, this is a great experiment that you can replicate at home. (Makes for a fantastic event during the holidays).
- First, we assembled a bottle each of five different styles of Champagne and labeled them: #1 blanc de blancs, #2 extra brut, #3 brut, #4 rosé, and #5 demi-sec.
- Next, we took large bars of six different kinds of chocolate and broke them up into bite-sized pieces, so that we had a pile each of white chocolate, milk chocolate, 70% cacao dark chocolate, 85% cacao dark chocolate, dark chocolate with almonds, and dark chocolate with raspberry.
- To begin, we first tasted all of the Champagnes on their own (and took notes) to get an idea of what they tasted like without chocolate.
- Then, we dove in. We tasted Champagne #1 with each of the chocolates and recorded our impressions of each combination. Then we tasted Champagne #2 with each of the chocolates, and so on, tasting every Champagne with every style of chocolate. Thirty tastes in all!
And here’s what we found:
- The best chocolate by far with the most number of Champagnes was white chocolate. White chocolate went beautifully with the extra brut, the blanc de blancs, the rosé, and the demi-sec. White chocolate’s luxurious deep creaminess was a sensational juxtaposition to the bubbles and the crispness of the Champagnes. (Now I know white chocolate’s reason for existence!)
- The least Champagne-friendly chocolate was milk chocolate. Milk chocolate made the Champagnes taste a bit dull. (Unfortunate).
- Both dark chocolates went well with the brut, and were terrific with the demi-sec. The sweetness of the demi-sec Champagne provided a great counterbalance to dark chocolate’s bitter bite, true for both the 70% and 85% cacao.
- Dark chocolate with almonds went better with more Champagnes than dark chocolate alone. The nuts acted as a “bridge” and brought out the yeastiness of the Champagnes. The extra brut and the dark chocolate with almonds was especially delicious.
- Dark chocolate with raspberries wasn’t as exciting as we thought it would be. We really wanted to love the chocolate with raspberries with the rosé (a pink thing), but that combination wasn’t as good as the rosé Champagne with dark chocolate alone.
So there you have it. Now gather some friends and try this at home!
