I have a particular love affair taking place with Tempranillo at the moment. Okay, so maybe I actually have a love affair taking place with many food and wine lovelies right now, but will get to those later on. 
I was first struck by Cupid’s arrow when I tasted the Tempranillo from Famila Gascon, 2008. Now that was love at first taste. Tempranillo’s are usually lighter, not heavy in body and easy to drink. This one however was different. It was fuller bodied, spicy and full of personality. It seduced me completely and initiated a curiosity about how the varietal expresses itself here in Argentina.
When I arrived at the winery O’Fournier and tasted their young Tempranillo I was intrigued once again. Here was another Tempranillo full of spice, particularly cassis which I love. So I decided to experiment, surely there was a way to pair these which chocolate.
Normally Tempranillo is not a wine that you would think to pair with the chocolate because it is lighter bodied. The go to wines are usually Cabernets or Amarones, that have either lots of body and spice or lots of mature fruit.. However I am convinced that any wine can be paired with chocolate, you just need to find the right chocolate and combination.
So could this Tempranillo hold up to chocolate? I was about to find out. I began rummaging in my little wine fridge, that doesn’t have a stitch of wine but instead is filled to the gills with 15 kilos of chocolate. And yes, I do keep it stashed away in my bedroom.
I pulled out a range of chocolates, from 62% to 88%, different beans and different countries as well as the O’Fournier Urban Eco Tempranillo 2008. This was a good starting point at least and I am happy to say we came up with some fascinating conclusions:
88% dark chocolate from the Amazonia region in Ecuador: Here the wine brings out citrus notes in the chocolate, and the bitterness of the chocolate actually brings the acidity of the wine down, balancing it out. There were still some slightly astringent notes, but they were pleasant and created a harmony with the citrus notes coming out. This combination was fresh and clean particularly on the finish.
80% dark chocolate from the Carenero region in Venezuela: This is an interesting match. The wine brings out all the earthiness in the chocolate that is not apparent when eating the chocolate by itself. It is a rich earthiness, reminiscent of a forest. The wine remains the same, the chocolate neither enhances it or makes it worse. However, with the addition of a bit of basil to the combination a transformation occurs. The fruit in both the wine and the chocolate come out, and the wine balances out, the acidity goes down and there is no bitterness. Now add some quince and pear juice to the mix. It goes up one more notch. Both the chocolate and the wine have completely harmonized in the mouth, all the fruits in both explode and it leaves you with a lovely fruity finish. It makes the wine better (not that it wasn’t great to start with).
72% dark chocolate from Moxos, Bolivia: this is also an interesting combination as the wine enhances the chocolate, bringing out all of it’s lovely flavours of cinnamon as well as the hidden fruit. However the wine remains somewhat flat. It is giving itself up in this relationship, compromising it’s personality to allow the other to shine.
62% semi-sweet chocolate from the Rio Arriba region in Ecuador: With this one the wine remained completely flat however the chocolate really shined, bringing out all of the cinnamon and spicy notes in it. But it was a complete one-side relationship, the wine in this case losing itself completely.
It was an interesting tasting because we realized that the more bittersweet chocolates that had many citrus notes were pairing better than ones with a lower cacao percentage and more spice. Not something I think most people would expect, but a lovely surprise. I was quite excited about the 88% and the 80% pairings and I believe I can create some interesting combinations with these. You can count on that one as part two…..
