Chocolate dessert

Assuming a dessert built on dark chocolate — a fondant, a torte, a mousse or a pot — rather than a milk or white chocolate preparation.

Chocolate makes two demands, and the first is absolute: the wine must be sweeter than the plate, or the sugar strips it thin and sour. The second is the cocoa, bitter and lightly tannic, which turns a dry wine harsh and stacks bitterness on any tannic red. Sweetness, concentration and weight are what the dish is asking for.

Pairs Perfectly

Pedro Ximenez Sherry, Jerez, Spain. Pairs Perfectly. Sun-dried grapes fortified into a near-black syrup of raisin, fig, date and molasses, with a cocoa note of its own that meets the dessert head on. It is sweeter than anything a kitchen is likely to plate, and heavy enough to hold against the fat where a lighter sweet wine disappears. A Cream Sherry from the same region is the everyday version, widely stocked and modestly priced, on the same raisin and caramel logic.

Pairs Well

Banyuls, Roussillon, France. Pairs Well. Fortified Grenache from the terraces above the Mediterranean, red cherry and fig over a genuine chocolate register. It sits a shade lighter than the Sherry, which suits a dessert with fruit somewhere in it.

Rutherglen Muscat, Victoria, Australia. Pairs Well. Treacle, raisin and honey from a solera in one of the hottest corners of Victoria. The concentration matches the density of the cocoa, and the Muscat lift stops the match turning heavy.

Worth Seeking Out

Recioto della Valpolicella, Veneto, Italy. Valpolicella grapes dried on racks and fermented only part of the way, so the wine finishes sweet: black cherry and fig with cocoa underneath, and a red wine's acidity still intact to cut the richness.

Avoid

Dry red wine of any weight. The sugar on the plate leaves it sour and hollow, and the bitterness of the cocoa stacks on the tannin until both taste harsh. Dry sparkling fares no better.

Failing That

A Tawny Port, Douro, Portugal.

If All Else Fails

Marsala, Sicily.

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