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Dessert Wine Pairings

This a table of dessert wine pairings for the novice. If you are a sofisticated wine connoisseur, then let us refer you to Food & Wine magazine.

But, if you are a beginner and just don’t want to mess up your night then check out our table for a quick reference of what wine is recommended to go together well with which dessert.

Wine Pairing Background

The motivating concept in pairings of any kind is “mouthfeel”, the physical and chemical interaction of the pairing in your mouth.

The secret to pairing a wine with a dessert is to try and match the sweetnesses of the food with the sweetness of the drink. The chosen wine should be as sweet or sweeter than your dessert. You don’t want the dessert to be much sweeter than the wine because if the dessert is too sweet then it will “dry out” the wine and make the wine taste bitter.

So, what wine goes with chocolate? As Valentine’s Day is approaching, we will focus on wine pairings with desserts. Dark chocolate is the easiest dessert to pair with wine since it has the less sugar content than most other desserts. For gifting, the best advice is to taste the pairing beforehand since it is really just a matter of taste when you are pairing wine with desserts (as long as you remember the secret). The following table contains suggested wine pairings for Valentine’s Day or any day.

Dessert	Recommended Wines
Fruit Tart	French Sauterne
Vanilla Desserts & Cookies	Gewurtzraminer
Dark Chocolate	late harvest Zinfandel
Milk Chocolate	Tawny Port wine, Vintage Port wine
Lemon Desserts	Ice Wine (Eiswein)
Creme Brulee	Port Wine
Ice Cream Desserts	Ice Riesling, Sherry or Muscat
Salted Chocolate	Sherry
Apple Desserts	Apple Ice Wine
Almond Desserts	Almond Champagne

What You Can Do

For Valentines dessert ideas, check our 13 Valentine treats page.

To find out how long wine lasts, visit our wine page. To find out how long champagne lasts, visit our champagne page.

Or, forget the wine and pour some Kahlua over rocks to enjoy alongside a slice of kahlua cream cheese pie.

To find out how long other foods are good for, please visit the Dairy, Drinks, Fruits, Grains, Proteins, Vegetables and Other sections of Eat By Date or use the search function below.