WBW13: Like Wine For Chocolate

Believe it or not, I’ve never made a cake before. OK… well, maybe a Duncan Hines in the 80s or something.

But anyway… after all of the positive support I’ve received on my blog in its first 3 days of existence, I felt ready to dive right in and try my hand with the pros as a participant in the Wine Blogging Wednesday event hosted by Chocolate and Zucchini. The basic concept is to make a rich chocolate cake and pair it with a wine and report on it. Sounds good to me! Any excuse to drink on a weeknight!

So, I stopped by my local Vons, which happens to have one of the better wine selections in my area. Being the shallow, uninformed lush that I am, I chose my bottle based solely on the cuteness of its label and the fact that it was described as fruity which a quick Google search had revealed as a key element of wines that pair well with dark chocolates.

Oh yeah - and also I really liked that it had the word “Screw” in its name:

It’s a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon called “Screw Kappa Napa.” It won Best in Class and Double Gold in the 2005 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition . It costs around $17.

And it was only after the first glass of wine that my husband looked at me and said, “Oh! I get it! It’s called Screw Kappa because it has a screw-cap!” Yes, we’re geniuses, people.

Sipping the wine before we tasted the chocolate cake, it was sweet and strong. The label describes the wine as having “coffee, ripe raspberry and vanilla oak aromas” with strong tannins. Although I am quite the “alcohol enthusasist,” I am no conneisseur of the vine. I can’t describe wines in the way of a sommelier or even someone who is trying to imitate the Paul Giamatti character in “Sideways.”

But I do know chocolate.

And once we paired it with Clotilde’s Melt-in-your-mouth Chocolate Cake, my husband Daniel and I were amazed to see how much the wine improved with the addition of the smooth, rich chocolate. I’ve never actually witnessed the way that the right wine can be so perfect with the right food. The idea of “pairing” wines was a vague and irrevelant concept to me - before tonight.

As Daniel put it, “The chocolate cake takes away the bite of the wine.” I would just say that it was synergistic - the intense chocolate fudginess brought out the best in the fruity richness of the Cab… and vice versa.

Then we sat down with our wine glasses and listened to the Steven Wright comedy CD that just arrived from Amazon this afternoon and laughed together.

My first cake was fricking phenomenal. I finally get how wine pairings work. I have 8 comments on my 3-day old blog. And I’m laughing on the couch with my husband. a

Not bad for a first-timer.