Dark Chocolate and Banyuls: A Halloween Night Pairing

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Chocolate is the enemy of most wines. Its bitterness, sweetness and coating texture make dry reds taste sour and thin, and many dessert wines turn cloying beside it. On Halloween night, when the good chocolate comes out, there is one wine worth reaching for.

Why Banyuls

Banyuls comes from the terraced slopes above the Mediterranean on the Côte Vermeille, near the Spanish border in Roussillon. It is a vin doux naturel, made mainly from Grenache and fortified during fermentation to keep natural sweetness. Its flavours run from dark cherry and plum in younger styles to coffee, cocoa, walnut and dried fig in older, oxidatively aged bottlings.

That is why it works. The wine has the sweetness to meet chocolate rather than taste dry beside it, and its own cocoa and coffee notes echo the flavour of the plate. It is often compared to Port, but with a lighter, more Mediterranean touch.

At the Table

Choose a dark chocolate around 70 percent, a flourless chocolate cake or chocolate truffles. Serve the Banyuls slightly cool, at about 14 to 16°C (57 to 61°F). Once open, it keeps for weeks.

The Bottles

Banyuls at Wine.com

Banyuls is made in small quantities, and the best bottles come and go quickly. Look for a younger Rimage for brighter fruit or an older traditional style for the deeper notes of coffee and walnut. Shop it at Wine.com.

One Rule

Serve the chocolate dark and the wine slightly cool.

The Pairing is Santé’s daily column on one dish and the wine that makes it better. A new pairing every evening.