Pastry chef Mary Cech will host Just Desserts, an all-dessert dinner paired with dessert wines at Cook Street School of Fine Cooking 6-8:30 p.m. Nov. 3, as part of Denver Wine Week. Specially chosen dessert wines will be paired with each course. The recipes are all selections from Cech’s new cookbook, co-written with Jennie Schacht, “The Wine Lover’s Dessert Cookbook” (Chronicle Books, $24.95). Some suggestions:
Pair desserts with wines that are sweeter than the dessert. If you sample a sweet dessert and then sip a wine that is less sweet, the wine will taste flat or sour.
Enjoy lightly sweetened fresh fruit with a gently sweet Moscato d’Asti. Try sticky-sweet caramel with a super- sweet beerenauslese or trockenbeerenauslese.
Match the wine’s weight to the richness of the dessert.
Pair lighter-bodied wines having little or no oak and no botrytis with fresh-fruit desserts – a young late harvest gewürztraminer with poached apricots, for example, or a Brachetto d’Acqui with red fruits. Late harvest whites with a little more body, perhaps aged in oak, pair nicely with caramel and buttery flavors. The fullest-bodied whites – ice wines and botrytised wines – are great companions to rich dairy desserts like crème brûlée.
Carbonation makes wines versatile and refreshing. Sweet sparkling wines are restrained enough to avoid overwhelming lighter desserts while providing a welcome palate cleanser for richer sweets.
A sparkling muscat is perfection with a delicate poached peach, while a sparkling Vouvray can keep a dense cheesecake from becoming overwhelming.
Fortified wines, with their typically higher alcohol levels, stand up well to rich desserts with deep flavors of nuts, caramel and chocolate.
Sherry almost always pairs well with nuts. The tannin in port and port-style wines is a lovely match with chocolate.
Look to complement, marry or gently contrast the dessert’s flavors with the wine.
A lively wine with citrus notes, perhaps a late harvest riesling, will enliven a dessert that calls out for a squeeze of lemon. The caramel flavors in Madeira make it a welcome companion to a tarte Tatin.
Don’t make your wine and dessert fight for attention. If the wine is complex, show it off with a simpler dessert. To highlight a complex dessert, choose a more straightforward wine.
– Denver Post staff
