Pairing · 4.1
Three rules instead of thirty
Sweetness, tannin against fat, and temperature. Thirty published rules are restatements of these, and these let you diagnose rather than memorise.
Behind a multi-day event, organisers can also compare operational tools for time tracker for work hours.
Published guidance on pairing wine with chocolate runs to dozens of rules. Nearly all of them are restatements of three, and the three are worth learning because they generate the rest.
One: the wine must be at least as sweet
Sweetness is comparative. Anything tasted after something sweeter loses its own sweetness by contrast and shows its acid and its tannin instead, so a dry wine after a sweet chocolate tastes thin and sour.
This is the rule that decides most pairings and it is the one people break first, usually by reaching for a serious dry red to accompany something with sugar in it.
Two: tannin needs fat
Tannin binds the proteins that make saliva slippery, and you feel the result as drag. Given fat or protein to bind to instead, it leaves your mouth alone.
Cocoa butter is the fat. A bar generous with it can absorb a tannic wine; a very dark bar with little of it has tannins of its own and compounds the problem rather than solving it.
Three: both want to be cooler than the room
Warm wine tastes of alcohol before it tastes of fruit. Cold wine smells of nothing and feels harsher than it is. Chocolate below about sixteen degrees releases its flavour late and above twenty-two goes soft.
Almost every indoor tasting is warmer than any of that, which makes this the rule most often broken by circumstances rather than by choice.
Thirty rules, derived
| The rule as usually given | Which of the three it is |
|---|---|
| Port with dark chocolate | One, plus two |
| Never sparkling with chocolate | One, and only for brut |
| Milk chocolate wants sweet wine | One |
| Big reds want very dark bars | Two, and often wrong |
| Serve red at room temperature | Three, and wrong now |
| Match intensity | Not one of the three |
The one that is not derived
Matching intensity is a real consideration and it is not one of the three, because it is a judgement rather than a mechanism. A delicate wine against an intense chocolate is not chemically defeated; it is simply outshouted, and you stop noticing it.
The rule of thumb is that the more intense partner sets the level, and the quieter one has to be able to survive at that level. It is worth holding as a fourth question and not as a fourth law.
Acidity, which is not a rule but is a lever
Acid cuts fat and refreshes the mouth, which is why a high-acid wine recovers your palate faster between mouthfuls. It also shortens the finish, for the reason the entry on the finish gives.
Against a rich chocolate, acidity is what stops the pairing becoming heavy. It does not decide whether the pairing works; it decides how many mouthfuls you can enjoy.
The procedure at a table
Taste the wine. Note whether it is sweeter or drier than the chocolate in front of you. If drier, either find a sweeter wine or a darker bar, and do not proceed hoping.
Then taste the chocolate, then the wine again. The second sip is the whole test: if the wine has become thin, rule one was broken; if your mouth has gone dry and rough, rule two; if the wine tastes of spirit, rule three.
Three possible faults, each with an obvious symptom and an obvious remedy. That is the entire content of most published pairing advice, arranged so that you can diagnose rather than memorise.
The short version
Wine at least as sweet as the food. Tannin needs fat. Both cooler than the room. Then ask whether either is shouting over the other, and you have covered everything the lists cover.
Why exactly three
Because these are the three that operate mechanically, on the mouth, independently of taste and of custom. Sweetness is comparative, astringency is a binding reaction, and volatility is physics.
Everything else in pairing is a matter of preference, of intensity, or of what somebody's grandmother did, and none of those is predictable from first principles. Keeping the mechanical three separate from the rest is what makes the rest arguable in a useful way.
Teaching somebody in one minute
Hand them a dry red and a milk chocolate, let them taste the wine after the chocolate, and watch their face. Then hand them a dark bar and repeat.
Rule one is now permanently learned and took ninety seconds. The other two take a similar demonstration each and the whole of this entry can be taught at a table without anybody reading anything.
When all three are satisfied and it still fails
It happens, and the usual cause is an aromatic clash: a chocolate flavoured with something that fights what is in the glass. Mint, coffee, strong citrus and chilli all do it.
No mechanical rule predicts that, and the only method is to try it. Which is a reasonable note to end the mechanical part of this journal on: the three rules eliminate the predictable failures and leave you with the interesting ones.
Carrying the three around
Sweetness, fat, temperature. Three words, in that order of importance, and they cover the failures you can predict. Everything past them is a matter of taste, which is the part worth spending an evening on.
The order of the three
Sweetness first, because breaking it ruins the pairing outright. Tannin second, because breaking it makes the pairing unpleasant without making it wrong. Temperature third, because it is the easiest to fix and the one you can correct halfway through.
Also in this part
- 1.1
Why a dry red and a sweet chocolate fight
The wine must be at least as sweet as the food. Everything else in this entry is a qualification of that sentence.
Read it → - 1.2
Tannin and fat: what happens in the mouth
Astringency is not a flavour. You are noticing the absence of lubrication that was there a moment ago.
Read it →
For further context, see Wine Folly pairing reference.