In our experience as a winemaking family, an aged Cabernet Sauvignon like our 2003 PELLA Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley offers vastly more (interesting) options, when it comes to food and wine pairing, than a young Cabernet Sauvignon. Why? A supremely well-aged Cabernet offers more layers of complex flavor than a tightly wound young Cabernet, which primarily showcases fruit.

Secondary and even tertiary flavors will have developed in addition to the fruit core, so you might taste graphite and bay leaf, then darker, more savory flavor notes: think peppercorn, black tea with milk, black licorice, dried beef, soy sauce, star anise, cigar box, salty black olive, tobacco, and dried wild mushroom.

“I like to make a solid, stand-alone wine. But when you pair wine with food, it amplifies things. It takes things to the next level.”

— Kristof Nils anderson

By way of analogy, think of classic perfumes that come out with a “noir” version. Chanel Coco Noir, Luna Rossa Black, Tom Ford Noir de Noir, Noir Extreme, Black Opium, Black Cashmere. These variants emphasize warm spice, woody spice, woody notes, sandalwood, vanilla ember, amber, black rose, black truffle, patchouli. In much the same way, our library Cabernets have developed darker and deeper tones, a treat for those who enjoy the nuanced flavors of foods that improve with age, whether wine or coffee beans, cheese, balsamic vinegar, and cuts of dry-aged beef.

Shy? Fragile and delicate like a snowflake? Nope. Just the opposite. Maybe a bit much for some. Many people, in fact, have little experience with aged Cabernet Sauvignons and might even be put off by the noir flavors if they’re expecting lots of sweet jammy fruit and big tannins. But those of us who get it, get it. There’s no better portal to understanding the absolute coolness of these aged wines than experiencing a spot-on food and wine pairing.

A beautifully aged Cabernet is powerful; it still has a youthful fruit core swirling about—a lot of fruit—as well as structure from tannins, yet the texture is silken crème brûlée as opposed to the wood plank texture one sometimes gets from muscular tannins that shrink-wrap the tongue in a younger wine. When it comes to pairing, well-aged Cabernet can be more generous than young Cabernet, its medium acidity perfectly in balance with the whole, its agreeable tannins no longer poised to clash with acidic or spicy food. Without the prominent tannins, which I sometimes imagine as the “ego” of a wine, aged Cabernet is just plain easier to get along with.

A very broad and idealized analogy—you know I can’t resist—may be made between the aging of wine and human development. (Of course, things don’t always turn out ideally. Some people are born nasty and get worse with age. Other beautiful souls are crushed rather than improved by time and life’s setbacks. And when it comes to wine, too many—perhaps most—aged Cabernets fall apart into dust upon opening or are flabby and lacking acid. So, you have to know when a killer Cabernet has been built to last, and when it has, it’s usually because the winemaker has an obsession with pH or hydrogen potential, but now I’m giving away secrets.)

Nonetheless, let’s imagine the difference between a self-absorbed and high-octane teenager (who by all rights needs to be self-absorbed in order to carve a path in the world) and that same person as a middle-aged adult who has gained flexibility and empathy over the course of many years and who has developed ego strength such that they can bend their will at times to meet the needs of others. Someone who has learned how to get along with a wide range of people while still retaining their core. An extraordinary, aged Cabernet, in just such a way, can pair with a surprising range of foods beyond red meat and potatoes. But for reasons that elude me, no one is talking about this incredibly cool and radical bit of information.

We have found, through experimentation, that our aged library Cabernets can pair beautifully with foods that should hate big, tannic wines like Cabernet. As an example, we opened a bottle of our 2003 PELLA Cabernet to drink with some Brillat-Savarin cheese, a rich, runny, triple creme cow’s milk cheese with salty and lactic flavors. One is not supposed to drink Cabernet with young cheeses like the Brillat-Savarin, but we found our pairing unexpectedly good. The cheese brought out flavors of pear, anise, cedar, and pomelo in the wine, emphasizing its “everlasting gobstopper” length and unfolding flavors and its creamy finish.

As with any relationship, ideal food and wine pairings work, not because they are opposite, nor because they are exactly the same, but rather because they are complementary. There should be some element in common, a shared language, and also something one gives that another lacks, and vice versa. The goal in pairing wine and food is always to find a combination that augments both; in other words, when this magic works, the flavors of the food are more delicious in tandem with the wine than alone, and the flavors in the wine are more delicious having been paired with the food.

Perfect pairings don’t always happen, and many pairings are merely acceptable. But when they hit, you know. A velvety Malbec that was a tad boring on its own positively sings when paired with super-acidic tomato confit. A tarragon-spiked cream sauce jolts to life when paired with a Sauvignon Blanc that cuts the rich cream and refreshes the palate yet harmonizes with the green herbs. And you know when they don’t work: the lobster in lemon butter sauce just made your Cabernet taste thin and metallic, and now the lobster tastes like nothing at all.

These pairings are both alchemy and chemistry because they invoke intensely personal responses. Many of us have read about scientific research on non-tasters (fewer than average taste buds), regular tasters (average amount of taste buds) and super-tasters (above average amount of taste buds). I’ve never seen anyone write about how those categories evolve over time, but they do. I was a super-taster as a child; carbonated drinks felt like needles in my mouth; mustard or mayonnaise on a sandwich was torture. But in my mid-twenties I learned to appreciate mustard, pickles, grapefruit, Campari, raw garden tomatoes, and a variety of dark, bitter vegetables that I’d hated a few years prior. Now it’s sugary things that make me recoil. My point is that the pairing of food and wine is personal. And that’s why people who love to cook are at an advantage when it comes to the revelatory pleasures of food and wine pairing.

People who say pairings are rubbish are probably only referring to the idea of rules set in stone. This always (or never) goes with that. Historically, some of this was sorted out in the long and hard-won process of developing regional specialties. What would you pair with the specialties of Emilia-Romagna in Tuscany, Italy, which include balsamic vinegar from Modena, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, Prosciutto di Parma, and mortadella? You don’t have to think hard, because somewhere along the way, someone started making Lambrusco, fizzy, uplifting and fresh – the perfect complement to those rich foods. But here in the New World? Lots of leeway.

Little to nothing has been written on the subject of pairing 20-year-old Napa Cabernets with cuisine (that I can find, anyway), and I’m going to field a guess as to why that might be. For starters, not many Cabernets are made to age, or when they are, people drink them young, anyway; or they’re so fabulously expensive that there’s not exactly a crowd clamoring for information on this subject; no crowdsourcing here. Plus, who’s going to experiment and risk a loss with a $300 bottle of wine? Grab those nice safe steaks or lamb chops.

As winemakers, we may not be rich, but we’re Cab rich, and we love to experiment in the kitchen. That being the case, we’ll use this Blog to write about 2003-09 PELLA Cabernet pairings that we think work well. We’ll update it from time to time, an ongoing (until the last case runs out) project. Our purpose is to help you to enjoy our wines to the utmost. We know we do.

For those of you who love experiments, try this: get yourself two black wine glasses. Pour 2007 PELLA Cabernet Sauvignon in one glass and any other 2022 or 23 Cabernet in the other. Make yourself a quesadilla with Mexican shredded cheese. Compare the taste of your quesadilla with each wine. I think you’ll see what I mean. I understand that at $100/bottle, the 2007 isn’t cheap (though it works out to $20/glass, which is probably less than a latte and a scone these days). My point is that we aged our Cabernet so that you can break it out and enjoy it with tonight’s barbeque and have your mind blown.

PAIRING AGED CABERNET WITH STARTERS

Mushroom Empanadas

Pairing 2005 PELLA Cabernet Sauvignon with Summer Starters — Click on image to hear more on Instagram.

I once learned an important tip while working for a famous wine writer, which was this: when you have a special, aged bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon you want to share, don’t serve it at the end of a dinner party, as the crowning glory, after serving younger Cabernets. Serve it first. It’s the opposite of what you’d think. Recently, we had some friends who are Cab lovers over for a glass of wine. I served our 2005 PELLA Cabernet Sauvignon with mushroom empanadas and beef carpaccio. It was an unexpected way to share an aged Cabernet, and while I love charcuterie boards as much as the next person, something a little different is nice.

Quesadillas with Fig Salsa

The 2007 PELLA Cabernet is tasting magnificent on its own, but here’s a fresh pairing: Quesadillas with Monterey Jack cheese (use truffle Monterey Jack for a little extra umami) and fresh fig salsa. The salsa combines fresh figs, diced red bell pepper, scallions, lime juice, sea salt, and lots of fresh ground black pepper. I didn’t imagine the pairing would work this well, but WOW! The bright red fruits in the wine love the sweet black fig and zingy lime juice. The wine has the slightest hint of white mushroom, which pairs with the cheese. The punchy salsa provides a foil that harmoniously unleashes waves of elegant, creamy mocha and black pepper that unfurl with the wine’s wonderful length. This wine is made for pairing, and thinking beyond Kobe beef pays.

Trader Joe’s “Step Up to the Snack Bar Mix”

The other night, Kristof and I cracked open a can of snack mix from Trader Joe’s while waiting for a chicken to roast. You know the kind: honey mustard pretzels, honey roasted peanuts, corn chips with flax seeds, cheddar cheese crackers, honey roasted sesame sticks and chili lemon corn sticks. It didn’t taste like much. We had some 2007 PELLA Cabernet leftover from the night before and poured ourselves a glass. Wow! The combination was terrific. The flavors in the wine activated the flavors in the snack mix. The salty snack mix emphasized the soaring waves of flavor in the wine. If I had a wine bar and was pouring tastes of aged Cabernet, I’d stick a bowl of this on the counter.

My point? Many people have zero experience with aged Cabernet. They are accustomed to Cabernet that tastes like “dessert in a glass,” you know? All blackberry jam and chocolate chips. Giving someone new to aged wines a glass is like presenting someone who is used to JELL-O salads a grilled radicchio salad. Understanding that wine is meant to be enjoyed with food, not simply evaluated on its own, based on how “yummy” it is, as if wine is a frozen coffee drink, opens new realms of pleasure. Our aged Cabernets were built different - built for fresh pairings.

Fried Chicken Livers with Balsamic-Marinated Figs

We served Chef Vivian Howard’s recipe from Deep Run Roots as a salad/starter with the 2005 PELLA Cabernet. Why it worked: the chicken livers marinated in buttermilk and a mixture of “warm” spices like fennel seed, cumin seed, coriander seed, and cinnamon. When we first opened the 2004 PELLA (always one of my favorite vintages) and tasted it, the primary, impactful flavor was fresh fennel or anise. Aromatic spice flavors bridged the dish and the wine.

AGED CABERNET AND VEGETARIAN CUISINE

Asparagus and Gochujang Pancakes

In Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Flavor, he differentiates his flavor techniques into charring, browning, infusing, and aging. His recipe for Asparagus and Gochujang Pancakes falls into the “aging” category because of the fermentation and aging processes that go into soy sauce and gochujang, a Korean fermented chile paste. So—I’m about to rest my case. This beautiful pancake, which melds aged flavors of soy, caramelized asparagus, and rich fermented chile paste plus green onion, fresh cilantro, and sesame seed, finds a perfect mate in our 2005 (my current favorite vintage for pairing) PELLA Cabernet. The wine mirrors the richness of fermented, aged soy and chile and caramelized tones, but it also has plenty of acidity to run with the fresh and the green. I tested the dish with Sauvignon Blanc, which held its own, and a young Cab, which was diminished, but ultimately, the 2005 wanted to keep on playing. The way you can tell this (for those curmudgeons who don’t believe in pairing) is that the length keeps on flowing in wave after wave…I really don’t think there’s more to say after this…

Miso Butter Onions

Another beautiful recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Flavor, roasted miso butter onions utilize high heat, time, and a simple broth of water, butter, and aged, fermented miso paste to achieve umami savoriness. The onions pair beautifully with the 2005 PELLA Cabernet and seem to absorb some of the wine’s savoriness, allowing acidic, ripe raspberry and pomegranate flavors to shine through. You could toss these onions with pasta, make a sandwich with them, or serve them as a side with Thanksgiving turkey.

CLASSIC PAIRINGS - WITH A TWIST

Ropa Vieja

True story: we sort of forgot that we’d made 2008 and 2009 vintages of PELLA Cabernet. (Life gets busy.) We had been storing all of our wine inventory in a cramped corner of the Scribe Winery cellar; things like pallets of empty glass and furniture kept getting moved in front of our casegoods, so that we could only access the 2003 and 2004 by doing some dodgy climbing and reaching. It was time to move out. And when we did, low and behold, we found the unlabeled ‘08 and ‘09 vintages in the back. Memories of harvests past came rushing back to Kristof as we uncorked bottles.

Julia Turshen has a delicious recipe for “Eighth Avenue Ropa Vieja,” a Cuban rendition of slow-cooked, shredded boneless beef chuck roast sauced with onion, garlic, green bell peppers, diced tomatoes, yellow mustard, raisins, and olives. The meat is unctuous and tender, with pooled, melted fat on the surface. The sauce is balanced but also assertive, with sweet, savory, and briny notes. I wondered how an aged Cabernet would hold up to the flavors.

I reached for the 2009 PELLA because (mistakenly), I remembered it as an austere wine, in comparison to the 2008, and wondered if austerity would pair well with the lush fat and bold flavors. I was wrong, because there was nothing austere about what Kristof called “power house” fruit flavors in the wine, along with anise, black licorice, black olive, fresh mint, and something he called “a pleasing tension between salty flavors and acid.” We sat in silence, sipping the wine and observing how it changed in the glass. He called it “one of the top wines” of his career.

Finally, we tasted the wine with the beef and found it to be a tasty match. As Kristof explained, “This is a powerhouse wine. It cannot possibly be amplified further without going into the stratosphere; but it does amplify the sweet and briny flavors in the dish, and it amplifies the overall enjoyment of the food.” I always think it’s amazing that a wine with zero sugar (100% dry) can taste like so many sweet fruits: the ripest, blackest blackberries, juicy plums, tart cranberries. “That’s the tail of the tiger everyone is chasing,” Kristof said. “That’s true terroir. Zero sugar, but the wine tastes just like the ripe grapes on the morning you picked them. Some people try to fake that fruit, but you cannot. This is a fruit-forward wine that works with the dish because the wine is dry, crisp, and clean. And that’s hard to make.”

SURPRISING COMBINATIONS YOU WOULDN’T EXPECT WOULD WORK

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Hoisin Sauce Lamb

The “tertiary” flavors in our 2008 PELLA Cabernet mirrored the deep soy and umami flavors in the hoisin sauce of this dish. The bright orange peel and boysenberry preserve flavors sang when paired with earthy, gamey ground lamb. Surprisingly, to me, the diced green peppers in the stir-fry harmonized with subtle green notes in the wine, such as bay leaf, and the dash of chili garlic sauce didn’t clash. The wine’s tremendous length, which unfurled in waves, continued harmoniously after each bite and sip, ending with flavors of plum and milky black tea.

This brings up the interesting topic of pairing Chinese cuisine with Cabernet Sauvignon. Not much has been written on the subject, and if you ask a somm, they’ll talk about Blaufränkisch or Riesling, perhaps because they’re trying to recommend one wine that pairs the gamut in a banquet from delicate steamed shrimp to beef in black pepper sauce. What would you pair with a soy sauce marinated quail egg? My mouth is watering just thinking of it. If I have a Cabernet with flavors of salted plum, salt and pepper, soy sauce, and black tea, it’s not hard to dream about foods that are lacquered with soy sauce, baked in clay pots, seasoned with hoisin, plum, or salted black beans. Might I recommend a glass of white and a glass of aged Napa Cab?

Pork Belly Claypot

Leftover Pork Belly Claypot from Slanted Door Napa found a stunning pairing in our 2005 PELLA Cabernet Sauvignon. The sauce packed a big WOW factor: acidic, brimming with sweet ginger and soy. The 2005 vintage could play all day with those flavors. Sipped on its own, the 2005 vintage is sometimes called “opulent,” “ripe,” and full of tertiary flavors. Yet I found it to be energetic, bright, and lengthy with this dish. Don’t try this at home with your young, dense, “graphite & violet petals” Napa Cabernet.

Curried Pineapple Rice

A fantastic pairing I wasn’t looking for: 2005 PELLA Cabernet that had been open on the kitchen counter for a day with Curried Pineapple Rice from Hugh Carpenter’s ‘80’s fusion classic Pacific Flavors. This glistening rice dish, made with homemade chicken stock and a touch of coconut milk, along with butter, toasted almonds, currants, diced red bell pepper, minced green onions, fresh pineapple, soy sauce, Chinese chili sauce, lime juice, and of course, curry powder, is my idea of a tough call when it comes to food and wine pairing. It left my glass of Chablis stripped of flavor and acid and tasting of stale, white wedding cake frosting. Then Kristof handed me his glass of almost 20-year-old PELLA Cabernet, and WOW.

I think we’re on to something, folks. For starters, there aren’t a whole lot of balanced Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons with enough acidity to age beautifully 20 or more years. When they do, the acid is still out in force, but the tannins are integrated. It’s my theory that the combination of juicy acidity and polymerized tannins allows these aged Cabernets to harmonize with similarly acidic food dishes (acid loves acid) that feature flavors (pineapple) and spices (like curry) that might surprise you. In a younger Cabernet with more astringent tannins, the tannins and spices would clash.

Pork Chops in Green-Curry-Braised Watermelon

Our dish was adapted from Chef Vivian Howard’s recipe for Pork Shoulder Steaks in Red-Curry-Braised Watermelon. Our monthly heritage pork box from Napaluma Farms arrived, and I substituted chops for steaks and used green curry paste, since I was out of red. This fascinating recipe has you slowly braising pork for two hours in a sauce of red wine vinegar, honey, fish sauce, and curry paste, along with 5 cups of cubed watermelon. The watermelon gave up its juices and resembled tomato chunks at the end. We served the dish with white rice enriched with a spoonful of herb butter to soak up the juices and a glass of 2004 PELLA Cabernet. Why the pairing worked: the chops, which had lovely thick fat, had been seared all over, giving the dish a caramelized, umami flavor that vibed with the wine. The combination of sweet, fruity and savory flavors, plus balanced fat and acidity in the dish, harmonized with the wine.

“Dirty” Farro ( Pairing Chicken Liver with Cabernet Sauvignon)

Sometimes people ask me which vintage of the 2002-2009 PELLA Cabernet Sauvignon vertical is my favorite. My answer? It depends what you’re having for dinner. Last night I made a dish with wheat berries (instead of farro)—cooked “dirty”—with aromatic vegetables, sausage, and chicken liver, kind of like “dirty rice.” (It’s another dish I adapted from Chef Vivian Howard.) Chicken liver and sausage transformed the wheat berries into a deeply meaty, umami, protein-rich dish. As a bonus, liver is cheap and nutrient dense. Some people don’t like the taste of liver, but in this recipe, all the flavors meld into one tasty whole, garnished with fresh herbs and celery leaves, the freshness a nice counterpoint to the rich flavors.

So, what is the best wine pairing for liver? (Burning question, I know. But listen to your mom: liver is good for you.) Answer: it depends. When I was in my twenties, Kristof and I celebrated a special meal at a San Francisco restaurant called La Folie, where I ordered foie gras to start. (I know, I know PETA. By the way, foie gras is now illegal to sell in California, according to Senate Bill 1520 (S.B. 1520), also known as the Force Fed Birds law, but not to possess and consume privately.) The somm recommended a glass of Chateau d’Yquem Sauterne to start, and I was blown away. Dessert wine to begin a meal!? Sweet and savory pairings!? It was the most perfect pairing I’d ever encountered.

There are different types of liver and liver preparations; I like cooking with organic chicken livers to add rich, umami depth to dishes like Bolognese sauce. Because I remembered the beauty of a sweet wine paired with (fattened) liver, I decided to pair my meal with the most opulent of our PELLA Cabernets, the 2005 vintage. Though it is not sweet (it’s 100% dry), the wine has heady notes of honeycomb and ripe, black fig, along with salted black olive. The 2005 vintage is a wine people either particularly love at first sip — or don’t.

I always encourage people to taste wine contextually. Wine writers, critics, and brokers, experienced as they may be, miss out on a lot when they pop corks and taste one wine after another. In real life, we drink wine with food. I also encourage people to open these bottles of older wine and let them breathe for a couple hours before dining. What ensues is magic!

By the way, wheat berries (for those interested) can be cooked and eaten as you would other grains like farro or barley, ground into flour, or planted to grow wheat. Because they are shelf-stable for 25 years, I once ordered a 50 lb. bag of organic wheat berries from Central Milling in Utah and vacuum-sealed small portions. Last night’s dinner was my first time preparing them, and after cooking them forever (about 75 minutes), they seemed done.

I like to test a lot of variables at one time, so it’s a good thing I’m not an engineer. Are wheat berries a good swap in this recipe? How is the 2005 tasting these days? Does liver pair well with an opulent Cabernet? Fortunately, a bridge wasn’t being built, but everything was a great success. The stunning 2005 PELLA was a phenomenal pairing with my chicken liver dish, as well as a salad of radicchio, basil, watercress, figs, roasted red onions, and toasted hazelnuts with a cinnamon and balsamic dressing — a recipe from Chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Plenty More.

PAIRING VEGETABLES WITH AGED CABERNET

Asparagus

We’re eating pencil thin asparagus that I pan-fried at high heat in cast iron with butter and olive oil, salt, and pepper. It’s fresh, al dente, yet slightly caramelized and singed. Asparagus is supposed to be a deal-killer, impossible to pair with wine because its organosulfer compounds and methyl mercaptans make wine taste metallic. If anything, unoaked whites are recommended. But we’re enjoying our asparagus with a bottle of 2005 PELLA Cabernet (that has been open and sitting on the kitchen counter 3 days!), and it’s beautiful.

“It reminds me of working in Montana,” Kristof says. As a teenager, he worked summers as a ranch hand. “One of my jobs was weed-eating, and there was wild asparagus growing everywhere — the scent filled the air — I wanted to eat it.” We try to figure out why our pairing works. “Wild asparagus — very fresh — has hints of cedar and forest floor,” he says. And our 3-day-open, 19-year-old wine tastes like cedar and incense. Surely, caramelizing the asparagus helps it vibe with the tertiary notes in the wine, but Kristof thinks freshness it what counts. Our asparagus is not mushy, canned asparagus; it smells, to him, like cedar wood. “To me, freshness is the most important thing,” he says. One thing I know, I wouldn’t try this with most tannic, young Napa Cabs.

PAIRING DESSERTS WITH AGED CABERNET

Fruit

I’d been working on something fancy in the kitchen, a sort of BLT crostini with homemade tomato jam, and I thought it might pair with the 2004 PELLA Cab. Nope. All the flavors became murky and blunted. What was I thinking?

Kristof was in the other room eating fruit salad. “You know what this wine wants to be paired with?” he said. “Something creamy. And sweet.”

“No,” I said, “That’s all wrong.”

“Taste this,” he said. He popped a bite of creamy papaya, sweet, earthy fig, and bright golden kiwi into my mouth. I sipped the wine. When pairings work, it’s almost like the heavens part and angels sing. Why this pairing works is beyond me. The flavors in the wine are augmented. The flavors in the fruit sing. The harmony is notable. An aged Cab is not supposed to venture into acidic fresh fruit territory, is it? Especially a sophisticated Cab with upfront flavors of ripe plum and long flavor waves of cigar box, dark chocolate, and espresso. Maybe the juicy acidity in the wine loves the acidity in the fruit; yet when we paired the wine with fresh peach slices alone, the pairing didn’t work so well.

I would serve this for dessert at a dinner party, you bet I would. Especially since most guests are still swirling their Cab and have no intention of drinking anything else when you serve dessert. Kristof speared some sliced cucumber I’d tossed with salt, pepper, and white wine vinegar and munched on it. “This is good with the wine, too,” he said. Unbelievable.

Savory Cookies

Demi-sweet chocolate cookies with chopped, oil-cured black olives from Dorie Greenspan’s collection of “cocktail cookie” recipes.

Dorie Greenspan’s tome Dorie’s Cookies has a chapter on “cocktail cookies” that will fascinate anyone with a sophisticated or questing palate. It’s my favorite chapter, at least. I prefer to think of these unsweetened and less-sweetened, savory cookies as a perfect partner with dessert wines after a meal. Dorie recommends pairing her Chocolate and Black Olive Cookies with a sweet red, such as a Port, and she’s right on. And yet…they’re also lovely with our most opulent, aged Cabernet, the 2005.

Chocolate and Cabernet generally have a dysfunctional relationship born in Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns and reinforced to everyone’s confusion by wineries advertising “cupcake & Cabernet” pairings as a draw for visitors. It’s like forcing two cousins with oil-and-water personalities to hang out. Both are fruity, both are fermented, both have tannins. It should work, but it doesn’t. The tannins in chocolate can accentuate those in Cabernet making a nuanced wine seem acerbic. The sweetness in chocolate candy can overwhelm the fruitiness in a sophisticated, dry, zero-residual-sugar Cabernet, making it seem dull.

But wait ‘til you try Dorie’s less-sweetened (only 1/3 cup of sugar) chocolate cookie studded with oil-cured black olives and a sip of 2005 PELLA Cabernet Sauvignon. The silky, powder-soft tannins in the wine are reminiscent of cocoa powder; the complex wine has waves of tertiary flavor in the cocoa and salty black olive arena, highlighting the natural sweetness of the olives; and the juicy acidity in the wine pairs with the fruitiness in the (not-overly-sweetened) chocolate. It’s as if cousins who didn’t play well as children finally found a satisfying detente later in life. Makes me wonder why we always rush to sweeten cocoa, when so many savory possibilities exist.

These Wines Were Made for Pairing – Pairing Aged Cabernet Sauvignon with Food