Take your wine game to the next step Gentlemen!

• Step 1: Choose a Dessert

  • Chances are that when it comes to dessert, you know what you like, so let's start there.
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  1. What would hit the spot?
     • This shouldn't be tough to figure out: just use your imagination and draw on your experience.
     • Dessert tastes run from fruity confections, to nutty, chocolatey, caramelly, sweet'n'salty, lightly sweet... choose away.
     • If you're drawing a blank, have a look at Epicurious.com's categorized dessert slideshows for something to make your sweet-tooth throb.
  2. Don't go too sweet.
     • Very sweet desserts can overwhelm the palate and make wine taste blunted or sour.
     • Consider avoiding, say, something from the esteemed confectioners at Hostess.
     • If you're a chocolate nut, consider going with a darker chocolate (at least 60% cocoa-it will say on the package) to emphasize the sweetness of the wine, rather than compete with it.
  3. Complement your meal.
     • If you've had a rich, heavy meal, consider something light. This should liven up your dinner guests, rather than drive them to an early bed.
     • If you've had a lighter meal, you might consider making dessert a rich, unforgetable highlight.
  4. Don't go frigid.
     • While ice cream or sorbet can be an element of dessert, avoid serving it on its own with wine.
     • Cold temperatures dull the palate and can effectively flatten the taste of wine.
  5. Consider serving wine alone.
     • You could opt to serve dessert wine alone, without a complementary confection or fruit.
     • See the the selections below.

• Step 2: Choose a Wine

  • Choose from the following varieties of dessert wines, using two main criteria:
    1. Try to choose a wine that's sweeter than your dessert.
    2. Choose a wine whose flavor would seem to complement the dessert.

• Port

  • Port is bold red wine from Portugal, fortified with brandy. The fermentation process is halted early when brandy is added to the vats, preserving the natural sweetness of the grape, while artificially raising the alcohol level.
  • There are three varieties of Port:
    • Tawny ports are aged for an extended period in wooden barrels, leaving them smooth, with a "nutty" flavor.
    • Ruby Ports are younger wines, generally described as "fruity" and "fresh."
    • Vintage Ports are aged for a long time in the bottle. They are usually spicy and full of deep, dark grape flavors.
    • What all ports have in common is high alcohol content and rich flavors.
  • Sweetness: generally high.
  • Suggested Pairings:
    • All ports can pair nicely with fruity desserts (including pumpkin pie and cobblers) and rich, creamy desserts (cheesecake, creme brulee).
    • Tawny ports, because of their nutty flavor and smooth texture, can pair well with milk chocolate.
    • Vintage ports, because of their heft, pair well with dark chocolate. Also, due to their high tannins (the astringent chemical compund that makes your mouth pucker), vintage ports can pair with walnuts, which have high tannins of their own; consider a dessert with walnuts, like banana cream pie.
    • Tawny ports may complement toffee and milk chocolate, due to their smooth, nutty characteristics.

• Sauternes and Barsac

  • The "noble rot," or "pourriture noble" in French, refers to a fungus known as botrytis cinerea that attacks grapes left on the vine, concentrating their sweetness beyond that of normal wine grapes. The classic result is the strong, sweet, French dessert wine known as Sauternes, from the Sauternes region of France, and Barsac, from the nearby enclave Barsac.
    • These wines, Sauternes in particular, can last a remarkably long time, with 19th Century vintages going for thousands of dollars at auction.
    • These wines are rich and powerful and include flavors like tropical fruit, honey, butterscotch, caramel and cream.
  • Sweetness: high.
  • Suggested Pairings:
    • Food writers often suggest fruit and cheese, particularly the classic pairing of Sauternes with blue cheese, such as Roquefort.
    • Also suggested are fruity desserts (tropical especially), creamy desserts (like cream pie or Creme Brulee) and fruity, creamy desserts (such as bananas with Dulce de Leche ice cream).

• Ice Wine

  • Ice Wine refers to a variety of wines made from grapes that are frozen on the vine, then crushed in their frozen state. It's made from a number of different grape varieties, including Riesling and Gewurztraminer, but will typically say "Ice Wine" (or the German "Eiswein") on the label.
    • Icewine's syrupy sweetness is balanced by high acidity, leaving a "clean" or "crisp" taste.
    • Its flavors are generally compared to light-flesh fruits, including pear, peach, apple and tropical fruits— also, hazelnuts.
  • Sweetness: high.
  • Suggested Pairings:
    • Good pairings include the fruits listed above and fruity desserts based on same; also, nutty and/or caramelly deserts.

• Ausleses

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  • Germany, known for its national sweet tooth, ranks its wines according to sweetness, the sweeter being the most prized. Auslese wines (pronounced "owss-leh-zeh" and meaning "selected harvest") are harvested late in the season and are typically made with Riesling grapes.
    • Ausleses are generally described as very fruity, and while they can be very sweet as well, the high level of acidity (characteristic of Rieslings) can balance the sweetness and make it very palatable.
    • The classes of Auslese made from the ripest grapes—Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese—are often described as "unctuous" (oily) in texture.
  • Sweetness: varies according to rank.
    • Auslese picked very ripe and are at least moderately sweet.
    • Beerenauslese (meaning "selected berry harvest", abbreviated to BA) are picked riper and are sweeter.
    • Trockenbeerenauslese (meaning "selected dry berry harvest", abbreviated to TBA) are picked shriveled and are so remarkably sweet that New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov says they "must maintain teeth-jarring levels of acidity to keep them balanced."
  • Suggested Pairings:
    • The less-sweet Auslese may complement lightly sweet peach or almond-based desserts.
    • Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese are so decadent that they can be drunk as desserts in themselves.

• Muscat

  • Muscats are made from the diverse white grape family of the same name, known for its strong fragrance and often used to make raisins.
    • Muscats don't need much maturing to be good and can be drunk the same year as harvest.
    • Their flavors are often identified with apricot, peach and other mild fruits.
  • Sweetness: varies.
  • Suggested Pairings:
    • Muscats pair well with fruit and can bring out the fruity overtones of milk chocolate, white chocolate, Tiramisu and other confections on the lighter side of creamy.

• Vin Santo

  • This traditional Italian dessert wine is known for its "nutty" taste, often identified as that of hazelnuts. Grapes are picked ripe and dried indoors, rather than shriveled on the vine.
  • Sweetness: light to moderate.
  • Suggested Pairings:
    • Traditional pairing is with biscotti, but other nutty desserts can work as well, including almond shortbread and almond cake.
    
    

Sweet Destinations....In Rememberance Of Nanny

Montevia Gamble is the founder and owner of Sweet Destinations. She was born in 1972 in Hogansville, Georgia. She grew up fishing, roller skating and dancing with her brother and sister. By the age of 4 her mother decided to move the family to Miami, Florida. By age 10, she begins

watching her grandmother prepare cakes from scratch. After graduating from Miami Jackson High school, she enlisted in the Armed Forces, but

that was short lived. She learned the secrets of baking and the importance of using the freshest ingredients while cooking beside her grandmother Mattie L. Gamble (Nanny) for some 25 years ago. Even though she has not had any formal training she had no idea at the time that the love for making desserts she learned from her grandmother imparted into her would show her the way to a passionate career in baking. She loves preparing her grandmothers recipes and takes her creation to a whole new level.

Montevia’s passion with food is due to the fact that she comes from a family of wonderful cooks.  Later, she became a member of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleader Squad in the 1994 - 1995 seasons. Her career path has been anything but normal, and that adds to a lot of the passion in the sweets she creates. She completed her diploma studies of Computer Information Systems at West Georgia Technical College in 2006.

Montevia Gamble is single and lives in Newnan, GA. She serves clients in the Atlanta and surrounding communities. She is a member of the Destiny Worship Center International located in Hogansville, GA under the leadership of Pastor Christopher L. Evans. She also contributes her free time and energy to helping others with finding one’s passion.

Montevia’s grandmother has been the inspiration for her motivation and the love of her career. And, Montevia has truly learned a great lesson from “Nanny,” which has influenced her work today.

Today, Montevia is currently working on her own cafe and cookbook and is displaying her creations at special events, corporate functions, and at Jamrock a Jamaican Restaurant located on MLK located in Atlanta owned by Dexter Nelson.

Submitted By Norman A. Anderson

Poli Grappa Miele

Founded in 1898, Poli has been crafting artisanal grappa for over a century. Widely regarded as the foremost producer of this spirit, Poli continues to employ the copper still, a medium used in the demanding “discontinuous distillation” process, which requires the Grappa Maker to exercise vigilance in the monitoring of the grappa by making continual adjustments to the style of distillation.

Poli has also authored the Policromia, an aroma/flavor chart that represents the spectrum of flavors delivered by grappa. The Poli Miele has deeper shades of yellow and orange, with an emphasis on both orange blossom and mandarin orange.

Grappa Wine Information

Grappa is a traditional Italian drink, made from the leftover skins and seeds of grapes used for wine. This is called the "Pomacy" or "Pomace". The Pomace is fermented and distilled in its natural state. The result is around 90 proof and clear in color.

Grappa is also known by other names. It is called Marc in France, Aguardiente in Spain and Portugal, and in Germany it's known as Tresterschnapps.

Great Dessert and Wine Combo

People are so used to partnering dark chocolate with sweet red wines, most notably port, that it’s easy to overlook other equally successful options.  This was a brilliant combination I came across.
The ‘tawny’ was not Portuguese but a delicious Australian ‘sticky’ made in the Barossa Valley by Grant Burge. It was slightly sweeter than most tawny ports, almost more like an oloroso sherry with a delicious rich raisiny character that was just perfect with the rich, dark, dense chocolate and its accompanying scoop of vanilla ice cream - like rum and raisin ice cream in a glass.

By Norman Anderson