{"id":4571,"date":"2020-10-04T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-10-04T19:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danthewineguy.com\/?p=4571"},"modified":"2020-10-11T12:07:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T19:07:41","slug":"serving-wine-with-dessert-keep-it-sweet-and-simple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/?p=4571","title":{"rendered":"Serving Wine With Dessert? Keep it Sweet and Simple"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article originally appeared, in part, in the October, 2020 issue of Bellingham Alive Magazine<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about the foods that might fall\ninto the dessert category \u2013 cakes, pies, mousses, truffles, custards, tarts, to\nname a few  \u2013  and you begin to realize there\u2019s potentially a\nlot of territory to be covered when looking for a wine to serve with these\nculinary treats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by applying one basic rule of\nthumb, you can conquer the wine-and-dessert-pairing conundrum with ease: simply\nmake sure the wine you serve is sweeter than the dessert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The reasoning behind this is just\nas simple; when the food is too sweet, it overpowers the sweetness content of\nthe wine and accentuates its other characteristics, namely acidity and alcohol.\nThis often leaves the wine flavorless, bitter, and no match for a dessert\npairing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider serving late harvest\nwines, ice wines, Ports, and Port-style wines with your dessert and the problem\nis solved. With their high residual sugar content and somewhat bold yet elegant\nflavor profile, they make excellent wine choices that can stand up to desserts\non practically any sweetness level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Northwest wineries offer plenty\nof dessert wine options, and sweeter fruit wines, many sourced from locally\ngrown berries, are a great place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatcom County\u2019s Samson Estates Winery<\/strong> makes these wines on two different sweetness levels. Their \u201cDelilah\u201d fruit wines (raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry) are lower in sugar but still make great pairing partners with less-sweet desserts such as cheesecake or a buttery pound cake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samson also produces higher\nsugar\/higher alcohol dessert wines that include cassis black currant,\nblueberry, Framboise raspberry, and \u201cOro,\u201d a rich, delicious fortified wine\nmade from roasted hazelnuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez Island Winery<\/strong> offers a pair of dessert wines as well; their raspberry wine is both tart and sweet, and brimming with fresh fruit aromatics and flavors. And their Fireside Port<\/strong>, a combination of malbec and sangiovese topped off with San Juan Distillery brandy, makes for a jammy, slightly smoky libation that provides the perfect accompaniment to anything chocolate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you prefer your dessert wines made in an ice wine style, try the Pacific Rim & Company 2018 Vin DeGlaci\u00e9re<\/strong>. Crafted from 100-percent riesling, it\u2019s packed with pear, golden raisin, and stone fruit flavors that explode into an ultra-long, honey-like finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, be sure to consider a pair of unique dessert wines from Bellingham\u2019s Vartanyan Estate Winery<\/strong>. The two wines, a 2015 Dessert Wine<\/strong> and a 2013 Dessert Wine<\/strong>, consist of fortified riesling aged in oak barrels for three and five years, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results are stunning. Each\nwine carries a lovely, sherry-like quality and the grape\u2019s natural acidity,\nalong with the perfect level of sweetness, balance out the 20-percent alcohol\ncontent. The flavor profile includes dried apricot, fig, and toasted walnut,\nwith a lengthy, lingering finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An added bonus to these wines:\nbecause of their high alcohol and sugar contents, they keep well after opening.\nThat means you can serve them now, cork them, and store them for pairing with a\nvariety of sweet desserts over the course of several weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared, in part, in the October, 2020 issue of Bellingham Alive Magazine Think about the foods that might fall into the dessert category \u2013 cakes, pies, mousses, truffles, custards, tarts, to name a few  \u2013  and you begin to realize there\u2019s potentially a lot of territory to be covered when looking for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-bellingham-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4571"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4575,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571\/revisions\/4575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danthewineguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}