I was quite shocked to hear André Mack say in his new vid that he would recommend pairing less-sweet wines with desserts.
WSET teaches you the opposite (I’ve attached a photo straight from the Level 3 course textbook). I’ve practised the WSET approach and never been disappointed, personally.
What are your thoughts on this, and where do you stand?
by pouks
28 Comments
Straight to jail
Pairing is not an exact science, there is never a single rule that works for everything, it should always be approached on a dish by dish basis and the priority should be accompanying and not overshadowing.
I pair desserts with bone dry sherry more often than with sweet wines.
I may be the odd one out here but I especially love dry tannic reds with desserts,especially dark chocolate.. Dark Chocolate and Tannat is match made in heaven..
I’m with you, but I’m not doctrinaire about this – I’ve had success with unconventional pairings. I think one should factor in the relative acidities and sweetnesses of the dessert and the wine. A dry, plush, big boy Zin can go really well with chocolate, for example, or peach pie with a feinherb Riesling can also work.
tried ice wine for the first time and I’m wondering what dessert could be sweeter lol
I’m on the wine sweeter than dessert side most of the time, but pairing is not rule-based, it’s taste-based and my wife likes chocolate and red wine, which I hate.
When it comes to sweet wines, port, etc. that is the dessert!
Okay, so there is this guy whom I have never seen without his winter hat so far.
Surely he is a great professional educating the masses and making this approachable.
So here’s my experience:
Food and wine pairings are generally overhyped for marketing purposes. In reality 80% of the good wines and good foods will go well together, there are 10% great pairings and 10% horrible pairings.
What even wine educators/somms get so wrong is when they “pair” wines with “meat” or “fish” or “dessert” or “chocolate” or whatever one-dimensional stuff they say.
In reality even at home, but most def in restaurants, you will have 5 or more ingredients on your plate. Most important usually is the weight and the texture that is somewhat anyways chemically related to sweetness and acidity.
So important is: Whats the sauce like with the roast beef? Bearnaise? What veggies you serve with?
Is the fish pan-fried? Is it beurre blanc with it? Lemon?
Is the chocolate dark or milk? Any nuts on the side?
Just a couple of examples.
I don’t wanna say anything, I don’t know Mr. Andre, I just recognize him from his winter hat. He should come with me to harvest grapes wintertime in Tokaj, then we could have a nice conversation about desserts and sweet wines.
“Sweeter” is a relative term, as there is total sugar in wines, but also there is acidity to balance them. Again, important is what kind of desserts?
But! We are humans. Most important is how you have been exposed to this sociocultural product. What is your tasting experience. What is it you like, prefer, dislike, tried, never tried.
Then if someone professional explains it to you, let’s you try a drop and you confirm, it’s good for you.
If you watch a youtube video and take down something from the supermarket shelf, probably not gonna be the same cultural immersion.
I hope this helps. >.<
The wine must – almost always – be sweeter than the dessert.
sauternes and ice cream. sweeter vs sweet
Give me a dryer wine with dessert and then a cheese course at the end with Sauternes. Problem solved.
Coffee with dessert
I prefer amaro with dessert
Wine should be sweeter
Both but it depends. For example, biscotti and Vin Santo are a classic pairing, but dark chocolate and Brunello is a match made in heaven.
This is such a weird recommendation that’s exceptionally off-base.
With dessert I normally have:
Water
Wine left over from dinner
A dessert wine or digestive like an Amaro
Double Espresso.
All at the same time.
I too did a double take on this, and I genuinely just believe he misspoke but no one filing or editing caught it.
my favorite pairings have either been a sweet wine that is sweeter than the dessert, or something that isn’t that sweet at all but provides contrast. the issue with having a dessert sweeter than a sweet wine is that the wine often tastes more alcoholic and some of the character is lost.
as another poster mentioned, a good rich dry sherry can pair well with many desserts; for me though, a medium sweet fortified wine with a very sweet dessert is a usually a terrible pairing.
also, Andre has done a lot for the industry, and I have a lot of respect for his business acumen and the way he’s brought wine to the masses… but after tasting many of his wines, I don’t particularly trust his opinion on what tastes good.
I’m guessing that in the United States everything dessert is so oversaturated with sugar and fat that you’ll never find a wine sweeter. It’s not so much that shouldn’t pair a sweeter wine it’s that you’ll never beat the sugar it takes to make Americans think something is sweet. WSET rules were made for countries with less desensitized pallets.
I love pairing Chardonnay with cheesecake.
In the past I’ve done countless selling events/wine dinners, pairing sweet wines with dessert… might have something to do with my region, but for whatever reason, dessert wines just never sold.
Since selling bottles was my goal, I started cheating and pairing dessert with gross high alcohol fruit bombs. (think Daou/Caymus/Prisoner style).
Occasionally I’d get called out for doing it, but always sold more wine that way, especially at country clubs.
I love dry wine. Dry wine pairs horribly with a sweet dessert.
True dark chocolate (aka not Hershey’s lol) isn’t very sweet and a nice dry red pairs well with
I don’t really care, I love sweet wine, especially Passito, so I drink whatever I feel like with the dessert
This is just click bait… when pairing a sweet dessert with a sweet wine and the dessert is sweeter than the wine, the character in the wine is overpowered and lost.
I was taught the exact opposite of this. Andre must’ve misspoke, right?
Usually wine sweeter than dessert works best. Wine is meant to follow the food and create harmonious “bonus” sensations. With high fat + sugar content and often rich textures it just often works better that way.
so then Sauternes should be paired with a cube of sugar rather than a good cheese, foie or even a creme brulee?
This advice is poor.
But in all fairness, rules are made to be broken. Sauternes with a blue cheese is because of the subtle interplay between the two, and the reason why you analyze the character of the wine and the food. That way they sing unexpectedly together.