Chocolate and Wine at Wein Hauck

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Wasn’t long ago if you’d mentioned wine and chocolate, I’d be thinking Mars bars and Mogen David?  Are you out of your mind?  Turns out I was out of mine.

Pairings don’t always work.  Spaghetti and caramel sauce.  Teenagers and cars. Conversations and narcissists.   Angela, the high school cheerleader and …but anyway, you see my point.

Couple of weeks ago, I got an invite to an evening of chocolates and wines.  I’ve come a long way since the Hersey days.  Much more of a sophisticate, conjuring up images of Nutella slathered on pale skin, wine delicately poured into navels.  Should have known, in my world, dreams and reality live two turbulent oceans, and a mountain range apart.

You mean actually eating chocolate and drinking wine?  Well, knock me down!  Why that’s like pairing maple waffles and hamburgers….wait a sec, a popular fast food chain already tried that.  Ok.  It’s like pairing scotch and root beer.  Damn, one of my friends drinks that all the time.  Well, hell!

Got it!  That would be like pairing me with a fat woman with bad breath!  Uh oh.  I remember one time in my misspent youth….hate to change the subject, but let’s wander back onto firmer footing:  chocolate and wine.

Ever heard of Wein Hauck?  Small place in an off street near the old market in Kaiserslautern, Germany.  http://www.wein-hauck.de

If you get the chance, drop in between 2 and 6:30 p.m., weekdays except Monday.  Don’t take a chance.  Go to the web site for exact times.

Often Wein Hauck offers off the beaten vineyard events.  Music and wine.  And in this case, chocolate and wine.

Even if there’s no special event, the small shop intrigues me and tingles my taste buds.  I picture wine tasting as a blind date, except you don’t have to buy dinner, and you can move on to something more attractive and still call yourself a gentleman.

I thrive on small shops, especially when it comes to wine.  Hole in the wall bodegas in Spain.  Gordon’s Wine Bar in London.  (http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2015/02/gordons-oldest-wine-bar-in-london.html)

If you’re carefully selective, you'll find small shops are friendlier and their survival rests on every single bottle they sell. Wein Hauck is a prime example.  The owners search for wines themselves, wander the vineyards, chat with the vintners, and only sell the best they can find.  French and German bottles dominate Hauck’s cellar, but they also offer a few Spanish delights, as well as some very interesting spirits. Picked up a few bottles of a bubbly and satisfying Crémant from Alsace, just a couple of weeks ago.  A jewel.

For the pairing on this evening, we tread both Italian and French vineyards.  Here’s a glance at what our hosts served:

Prosecco (Maschio dei Cavalieri), with 60% Chocolate, flavored with caramel and Fleur de Sel.

2014 Côte de Gascogne, with another 60% chocolate, this one with ginger.

Our molars coated with chocolate, our palates already well-graped, we moved on to the red wines:

2011 Cabardes, with 60% chocolate and mildly spicy red peppers.

2011 Vacqueyras, with 70% chocolate from Sao Tomé.

2011 Côtes de Bourg, with 85% chocolate from Ghana.

You want to know the bottomline, right ?  All the wine pairing worked supremely well, but none except for the Prosecco, would I choose to drink without the chocolate.  Sounds like the wines were not up to snuff.  Nothing farther from the in vino veritas.  These wines paired exactly correctly with the accompanying chocolates.  That, my friends, is difficult.

That’s also the magic of pairing that goes beyond red for red meat and white for chicken and seafood.  Start talking chocolate and wine and the red and white rules take a nose dive.  Same goes for wines and cheeses.

In my own late night excursions into  the wonders of the grape, I’ve found sturdy white wines, especially some of the Spanish drys, stand up well to the heavy flavor of beef.  Similarly, I’ve tasted reds just perfect for a particular cheese.

All in all, Friday night at Wein Hauck  led to a solid evening of tasting and chatting, but standing around sipping wine and eating chocolate….how bad could it be ?  Our cordial hosts took us on a tasting tour that opened my eyes and brightened my evening.  The  Wein Hauck selections paired remarkably well, but had I sipped them without chocolate I would have moved on.  Neither my palate nor my mind had made the adjustment to chocolate.  Just another point in favor of a small, quality wine shop that knows how to blend flavors and select the best wines for each occassion.

Wein Hauck is adept at  specializing rather than trying to blanket the planet. This small shop is a wonderful place to ferret out good wines at reasonable prices.  They also offer their remarkable expertise in leading the novice to experience some out of the way stops on the wine road.

Want to know a bit more about unusual pairings?  Here's a great place to start.  Check out this blog from my good friend, Laura.  http://laurauncorked.com

Look for upcoming wine events and in the meantime, stop into Wein Hauck.  Tell them the guy with the broad grin and the chocolate moustache sent you.