Your Sweet Tooth, a Chemist, and a Horror Film
This issue was published on October 25, 2023.
Happy Wine Wednesday!
I guess it's already time for the Halloween issue!
Today we’re talking about pairing wine with candy and desserts, then learning about Ann Noble, the chemist who invented The Aroma Wheel that’s oh-so-important to wine professionals, amateurs, and everyone in between!
Plus, I have an 80's horror movie recommendation for you in our Vinotainment section...
So pour yourself a glass, grab your candy bowl, and let’s get our wine nerd on!
Candy & Wine
Wine Pairings for Your Sweet Tooth
With Halloween less than a week away, what better time to chat about pairing wine with your favorite candy? Or perhaps, pairing candy with your favorite wines…
Let’s start with the broader topic of pairing dessert with wine.
Personally, I usually just keep drinking wine after dinner as my “dessert,” but there are times I go out to eat at a restaurant and miraculously have room for dessert (i.e. am going to eat dessert no matter how stuffed I am…) In those instances, it helps to have a general idea of the dessert pairing guidelines so you don’t end up ruining your wine/dessert/both.
The tricky thing with pairing wine and desserts is that you typically want the wine to be sweeter than your dessert. If the dessert is sweeter, it makes the wine taste sour or super bitter. It’s like eating a Hershey's Kiss before eating grapefruit: even if it’s the juiciest, ripest grapefruit in the world, it’s going to taste insanely sour compared to that Kiss! This is the main reason why dessert wine is...well, why it’s called dessert wine. It’s sweet and can handle the sweetness of desserts, resulting in a beautiful (and very sweet) pairing.
For example, let’s say your go-to dessert is chocolate (hi, dad!). Maybe you’ll pair a bitter, dark chocolate with a lighter, fruitier red wine like Beaujolais. But a sweeter milk chocolate, fudgy brownie would be better off with a fortified wine like port, sherry, or Madeira. If you’re more of a white chocolate person (I’m only slightly judging you…), try an off-dry riesling, Moscato d’Asti, or experiment with some ice wines! If it’s a white chocolate that’s not too sweet, you might even try experimenting with a New Zealand sauvignon blanc to balance some of the creaminess from the dessert with the acidity of the wine.
If fruity desserts like pies or tarts are more your thing (that’s me!), try experimenting with crisp, acidic wines. For example, a tart chenin blanc could pair beautifully with a berry tart. The acid from the wine will cut through that creamy filling and buttery crust, while the fruitier notes of the wine go hand in hand with the berries. Dry rieslings and the aromatic gewürztraminer can also be paired deliciously with fruit cobblers and pies that are a little less tart (like peach or apple). More of a buttery chardonnay drinker? Cupcakes with buttercream icing, vanilla-focused desserts like crème brûlée, or even a lemon tart or key lime pie would pair beautifully with the medium to fuller bodied, buttery wine.
And now, onto the Halloween candy.
The thing with candy is that…it’s basically sugar with some flavors (if that). Keeping the above ‘guidelines’ in mind, it might be tough to pair a dry or non-fortified wine with candy! But, there’s plenty of different combinations you can experiment with. And besides, rules are meant to be broken!
One thing to play around with is texture. For example, KitKats (one of my favorites) have a different texture than a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (my least favorite. I know, I know).
Enter: bubbles.
Create your own PB&J with some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and a chilled Lambrusco. Try some Starbursts with Champagne! Bubbles are also a great pairing for the most hated Halloween candy of all time: candy corn. Crisp, simple bubbles can act as a palate cleanser of sorts while elevating some of the fruitier notes from candies like Skittles or providing some contrast to the earthiness or sweetness of chocolate and peanut butter.
Light reds, like pinot noirs and gamays, can also be paired with fruit candies like Twizzlers! You might also try a slightly earthier pinot with a KitKat - the earthiness helps to complement the chocolate with the acidic, fruit notes complement the crispiness of the wafer.
Syrahs and zinfandels can also be fun to experiment with. Dark chocolate bars are especially lovely with a jammy zin!
Like any other pairing, the above guidelines don’t mean anything if you don’t enjoy the pairing! Maybe your favorite candy and favorite wines aren’t ‘meant’ to go together, but that’s what you enjoy. That’s okay!
Or maybe, you can use this as a reason to stock up on a bunch of different Halloween candy in an effort to find The Ultimate Candy Pairing for your favorite wine…
Ann Noble
Chemist & Creator of The Aroma Wheel
This week’s Woman in Wine is not a winemaker or a sommelier, but a sensory chemist and former professor from the University of California, Davis.
Image courtesy of winearomawheel.com
Originally from Massachusetts, Ann got her PhD in food science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1974, she was hired at UC Davis (known for their wine programs) and became the first woman hired as a faculty member in the Viticulture department. There, she worked in their sensory research program and studied the techniques and application of wine tasting.
While doing this research, she realized that there wasn’t any standard, objective framework or terminology used within the industry.
Instead, wine professionals would just use convoluted terms that were personal to them, but perhaps not to anyone else. Not only was this annoying for wine consumers, it also made her research into understanding how specific vineyard or cellar practices could change wine aromas more difficult.
Ann wanted to create a communication system that wasn’t so vague or subjective, and would help both professionals and consumers better communicate and understand wine descriptions. In collaboration with her students and the American Society of Oenology and Viticulture, she went on to invent The Aroma Wheel in the 1980s.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, here’s what The Aroma Wheel looks like:
The Aroma Wheel, invented by chemist Ann Noble
And just for fun, here’s Ann with the first iteration of the Aroma Wheel in 1984:
Image courtesy of winearomawheel.com
As you can see, it categorizes and provides a visual representation of the aroma components found in wine. The wheel breaks wine aromas into 11 basic categories, which are then further subdivided within those main categories. For example, you can see some of the descriptions I used when talking about the candy pairings in the wine wheel, like “fruity” and “earthy.” Each category then has the aromas within that category, so “berry” or “citrus” would be in the “fruity” category, while “mushroom” would be in the “earthy” category.
Today, the Aroma Wheel is an industry standard and a must-have tool in wine education! While there are still some vague descriptions about “elegantly harmonious and complex” wines, you’ll almost always also find an aroma from the wheel listed in any wine description.
Ann published over 150 research papers during her time at UC Davis, and was named Emeritus Professor of Enology in 2003, a year after she retired. She also received an Award of Merit from the American Wine Society in 2000, and now continues to teach and judge wine competitions.
You can learn more about The Aroma Wheel here, or read the Wine Enthusiast interview with her here.
Get a wine-related movie or book pairing for your weekend.
Today’s pairing is the 1989 horror movie, The Vineyard, written, starring, and directed by the illustrious James Hong
Ready to get weird? James Hong plays famous winemaker Dr. Elson Po who has a secret ingredient that he uses to make wine…and keep himself young. He invites a group of actors to come stay at his vineyard estate under the guise of auditioning for a wine-making movie. Instead, the young guests quickly find out about his secret and fight to escape from the vineyards.
Fun fact: James Hong is one of the most credited actors with over 500 credits on IMDb - and counting!
That’s all for this week!
If I missed your favorite wine and candy pairing, hit reply and let me know! I will personally be trick-or-treating myself to some Bordeaux and frozen Milky Ways all weekend…
As always, thank you for reading.
See you next Wednesday (in November…!!!),
Megumi