Dear Carly: Wine, in general, is amazing in the number of aromas and flavors it can possess, and two of the more fascinating ones in the kaleidoscope are chocolate and cocoa. Both of these characters generally come from oak barrels, the toasting of which produces a range of flavors that fall into the camp of chocolate/coffee/vanilla/spice. Tannin, too, can play a role since the flavor of tannin is “good bitterness”—like dark chocolate. For these reasons, chocolate and cocoa flavors show up in red wines far more than in whites.