WTN: Wine food match of the night

I am in London, England visiting my son, Eric. Tonight we went out to dinner at a local Spanish tapas restaurant called Joses on Bermondsey street in central London. This restaurant features authentic Spanish tapas and wines. We had a great bottle of 2008 Crianza for dinner to go with our tapas but the real star was dessert and our dessert wine match for it. We ordered a dark chocolate mousse for dessert. I decided to pair that with a Solera Gran Reserva Garnacha Emperado. When the two mixed on the palate their was this explosion of flavor! The chocolate notes of the wine plus the nice acidity just really enhanced the flavor on the palate and especially lengthened the finish so that it just kept going and going and going! OMG, just one of those sensuous wine food experiences that is almost as good as sex. My son and his partner, Laura just thought it was great too! This is why I am a wineaux, for experiences like this.

[Jenise]

Tom, yes that's the chase that we're all after. Glad you found it. I will admit, though, I seek that ultimate thing less than I used to, and am more inclined to drink the wine I want and eat the food I want without striving for a match. I did not tire of the pursuit, I just strive less hard and am even more excited by the accidental matches that occur outside of conventional wisdom.

Hi Jenise,

I still find some unusual wine-food matches that I would never have predicted, so it is always good to experiment. Yes, sometimes I just want a Rhone, or a pinot, or a cab, and either make food to go with it or just hope it is a decent match. Those OMG matches do not happen everyday. And this one was just a happenstance, because they were out of the original dessert that we ordered and offered the chocolate mousse instead.