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Days Of Wine And Chocolate Tasting chocolate with a wine lover's palate... By Jonathon Alsop October 1, 2005 There's no question: I need to drink other liquids and taste other things besides just wine. First of all, I believe it's bio-chemically required. The human cannot live by wine alone, although I have done it myself for a few days at a time. Second, my family, friends and loved ones need a break from relentless wine talk now and then. Changing the subject to basketball does not count. Finally, tasting new things takes me out of the expert role and puts me in the shoes of all the new wine lovers out there in the great big world. And that's good for me. Caroline Yeh, owner of Temper Chocolates in Boston's Hotel Commonwealth, taught a chocolate 101 class a while back that really turned the tables on me in a delightful way. I have to confess, I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and I've never really eaten a lot of chocolate nor really paid much attention to it, except to notice that some women seem to really like it out of all reasonable proportion. When it comes to chocolate class, I'm like the person at the wine tasting who's never really drunk wine and wonders what all the fuss is about. Class began with the introduction of Toscano Brown, Toscano Black, Madagascar, Trinidad, and the much sought-after "old tree" Chuao. "Sounds like a big drug bust," I said to the couple next to me, who didn't think it was funny at all. The two Toscano chocolates were blended chocolates for the same reason wines are blended: to achieve balance between different flavor profiles and to maintain consistency between harvests. Talk of terroir, microclimates and varietals flew fast and furious and would have made the most hardened wine lover feel right at home. "The market has increased, the complexity has increased, and the confusion has increased," Caroline said. The answer -- as it is so many times in the similarly complex wine world -- is to read the label, both front and back. In class, I was the philistine in love with the obviously yummy chocolate that everyone else knew tasted too good to be any good, but today, I'm reading chocolate labels like people used to read liner notes on a Beatles album. I'm trying to raise my percentage of cocoa (sometimes called, unfortunately, cocoa mass) because the cocoa is where the interesting varietal components reside. More cocoa sadly means less room for fat and sugar, and that's the obviously yummy part. Milk chocolate can be anywhere for 10% to 30% cocoa, but hard-core chocolate lovers don't start getting excited until a chocolate is at least 50% cocoa. If you play your cards right at the upcoming wine and chocolate pairing class, you should be able to achieve at least 50% wine, and that would work for me. Back To Chocolate School All Temper Chocolate classes with Caroline Yeh meet at the Hotel Commonwealth, Longwood Room, 500 Commonwealth Ave., 7:30 till 8:30 pm. For information and reservations, go to www.temperchocolates.com, or call 617-375-2255. Chocolate & Wine: Could There Be a More Perfect Pairing?, $25, Wednesday, Oct. 5. Wines by the Wine Gallery in the Hotel Commonwealth, www.wine-gallery.com or 617-266-9300. From Bean to Bar: The Evolution of Chocolate, $35 ($50 a couple) includes tasting kit, Thursday, Oct. 13 and Nov. 3. Chocolate Tasting: The Basics, $15, Thursday, Oct. 27 and Wednesday, Nov. 16. Almost Just Dessert 2001 Fabiano "Negraro" Valpolicella Ripassato (about $17, available from Distillerie Stock, www.stockusaltd.com or 800-323-1884) Ripasso is a wine finishing technique from northern Italy that's growing more and more popular all the time. To make Ripasso, the wine maker takes the just-emptied barrels of the ultra-expensive dessert wine Amarone and re-fills them with a good but probably plain red Valpolicella. After a brief second fermentation in these dessert wine barrels, the wine takes on new richness and shows off interesting spice. The $12 Valpolicella emerges the $18 Ripasso, so needless to say, wine makers love this technique. Fabiano is unique in its almost scientific improvement of the wine. First, the new wine and the lees (a.k.a. the dregs, gunk, residue, what have you) from the barrels go into stainless steel tanks together for a more controlled second fermentation. After this step, the new Ripassato goes into its own Slovenian oak barrels for another year or two. By the time it sees a bottle and the bottle reaches my local wine shop and ultimately my table, what might have been a simple red Valpolicella is immensely improved. Fabiano's Ripassato is a garnet, radiant red color. It is dense in layers of flavor with lots of ripe red fruit like plums, cherries and raspberries. I especially love the spiciness that reminds me of cloves, nutmeg and even cinnamon. There is a pronounced layer of molasses and bubbling brown sugar that I think might stand a chance with chocolate. If not chocolate, then braised boneless short ribs with a pomegranate glaze.

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