Food & Wine Pairing With Dessert

Wine for desserts often gets forgotten, but it can make a wonderful end to a delicious meal; it’s easy to think that any sweet wine will go with any old dessert, but this isn’t the case at all. Yet again, it’s all about balancing the sweetness and richness of the food, with the intensity of the wine, so that one doesn’t dominate the other. Here are a few ideas:

Fruit based desserts – this could be fruit salad, pavlova, or a creamy roulade; keep everything fresh, and vibrant, to enhance the combination of sweetness, but also acidity in the fruit – the best matches are light, delicate sweet wines, such as Asti Spumante, which is a great match, with its own grapey freshness, young Muscat and German Riesling Spatlese.

Creamy desserts – cheesecakes, crème brulee, pastry tarts – opt for Sauternes, Tokay, or gentle French muscat.

Rich, chocolate and caramel desserts – here you need richer wines, such as Australian liqueur muscat, or tawny Port. Some rich, sweet reds such as Valpolicella Recioto, and the French Maury are also great matches.