Go on then, give us a port — Southampton!

After work on Friday I went down to Best Cellars in Dupont for a tasting. I was talking to Michael during the day at work and sent him info and I think after talking him into it, he then talked me into it, so I met up with him there. They were pairing wines and chocolate truffles from local Pastry Chef Eric Johnson. I don’t often eat sweets that much, and while I know that chocolate and red wine is a classic pairing, I’d never really had them together.

The pairings were…

• a sparkling Cava Brut paired with a strawberry truffle — Not my favorite of the bunch. The truffle was great, intense strawberry flavor, but it paired with the Cava kinda like orange juice and toothpaste, sort of clashing. Brut isn’t my favorite sparkling wine anyway, so it’s not very surprising.
• a Riesling paired with a white chocolate truffle — Riesling is about the only white wine I’ll drink regularly (aside from Voignier) so I was looking forward to this. The white chocolate was perfectly cut by the slight bite of the wine, and I don’t usually like white chocolate, but this was a perfect pair.
• a Syrah paired with a ginger truffle — Finally a red wine, and I’m having… ginger? At first the woman gave us the dark chocolate by accident and we all said “Oh this is a really subtle ginger flavor!” then she realized her mistake and we got the proper truffle (bonus truffle!) which definitely hit you with ginger, but blended very well with the Syrah. I don’t know that I’d try it all the time, but I’d put those two together again.
• a Port paired with a dark chocolate/bittersweet truffle — I’ve never had port before, so I didn’t know what to expect and always thought it was more like a brandy/cognac kind of thing and not really considered wine. It was intense, heady and sweet so the dark chocolate had to cut the taste instead of the other way around like the two whites. Clearly port is something you don’t fill a glass with, but as a candlelit after dinner cordial with a tray of truffles, I’d probably really enjoy it.

Michael picked up some bottles and a small box of truffles, I passed since I was meeting up with Dean later on, and I planned to make it back during the weekend to do some shopping but that didn’t really pan out. Even with the searing heat this week though I might try to make it down there on the bus and not melt while waiting for the ride back.