The Days of Wine and Chocolate

One of my favorite movie moments comes in the 1973 movie Sleeper, when the Woody Allen character, Miles Monroe, who before being cryogenically frozen was the owner of a health food store called the Happy Carrot, is "defrosted" 200 years into the future and discovers that all the foods people thought were bad are really good for us. I feel the same about dark chocolate and red wine, so whenever there's a tasting that involves these two 21st-century "health foods," I'm there.

On Saturday, February 9, Verdigris Tea and Chocolate Bar will host a wine and chocolate tasting. The chocolates for sampling are the creations of local chocolatier Christopher Norman and the wines are selected by Lewis Dimm, proprietor of Fairview Wines & Spirits, who offers this advice about pairing chocolate and wine: "There are two things a taster must remember when selecting wines to match up with chocolates. The first is that the wine must be sweeter than the chocolates. The second is that red wine works really well with fat. The cocoa butter that makes chocolate smooth and silky also tempers and softens the tannins in a big red wine. So choosing a very sweet red wine, full-bodied, is probably a safe bet."  

The tasting begins at 5 p.m. and continues until 7.  Verdigris Tea and Chocolate Bar is located at 135 Warren Street, at the corner of Second Street.