Profiteroles

Profiteroles

Profiteroles combine light choux pastry, cream and a chocolate sauce, and the chocolate decides the wine. It is sweet and faintly bitter, so a dry wine tastes thin and harsh beside it. The wine needs to be at least as sweet, with red fruit or a toffee note that meets the chocolate and enough freshness for the cream.

Pairs Perfectly. Brachetto d'Acqui, Piedmont, Italy. Sweet, lightly sparkling and red, with strawberry and rose that suit chocolate and cream, and low enough in alcohol to keep a light pudding light. It is inexpensive and easy to find.

Pairs Well. Banyuls, Roussillon, France. A sweet, fortified red of dark cherry, cocoa and dried fig, the classic French partner to chocolate.

Pairs Well. Rutherglen Muscat, Victoria, Australia. Toffee, raisin and coffee, very sweet and rich, for profiteroles with plenty of dark chocolate sauce.

Worth Seeking Out

Recioto della Valpolicella, Veneto, Italy. Made from dried grapes and left sweet, with black cherry and cocoa that mirror the chocolate.

Avoid

Dry wines of every kind. Chocolate makes a dry wine taste sour and bitter, and tannin adds to the bitterness of the cocoa.

Failing That

A Pedro Ximénez, Jerez, Spain.

If All Else Fails

Asti, Piedmont.

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