Tea and biscuits. Port and stilton. Coffee & TV. OK, that last one blurs the lines a bit, but the point is that certain food and drink is just made to go together. Malbec and steak is one such pairing, as those meaty masters of Argentine beef over at Gaucho know only too well.
They aren’t ones to stick to the obvious, though. Our latest venture into the oenophile’s playground that is Cavas de Gaucho, the restaurant group’s wine store, was completely meat free.
In celebration of Chocolate Week, they’d brought in master chocolatier Paul A Young for a tasting that was all about the cocoa rather than cow.
He guided us expertly and humorously through a range of Ecuadorian chocolate bars of different cocoa varieties, locations and percentages; explaining not only some of the flavours we were tasting, but also what leads to these individual characteristics. In his own inimitable and endearingly accessible style, Paul spoke variously about his like for an occasional bar of Dairy Milk or a Snickers, whilst presenting his own artisanal chocolate truffles which contain no additives, flavourings, preservatives or oils such as lecithins. It makes his chocolates harder to produce, more difficult to store, and ultimately more expensive – but it’s clear that his integrity is the ruling factor.
Of course, we’re in a wine shop, so chocolate is only half the story. The rest is down to its unbeknownst bedfellow of Argentine Malbec, of which Gaucho offers the biggest selection of any restaurant in the UK. The group’s wine director Phil Crozier lead the tasting, showing off the house’s own Vina Patricia bottling, which comes from gaucho’s own vineyards in Mendoza and was created in a strictly limited batch in 2008.
It’s interesting to see how the wine changes the taste of the chocolate, and vice versa. A glug of wine emphasises a fruity tasting chocolate, bringing out many of the same red fruit characteristics that can be found in the glass, whilst darker nibs contrastingly promote roastier, toastier, almost chocolaty notes in the wine. The two clearly share a flavour set.
Putting their matching capabilities to the test, Paul unveils the highlight of the evening in the form of a specially created Vina Patricia Malbec Truffle. A dark shell filled with a ganache made solely of the wine we’re swigging, the result is a mini bomb of exploding dark cherry and black fruit flavours. The biggest achievement of all, though, has to be that even after the amount of chocolate we’ve consumed it doesn’t make us feel one bit sickly. Must be all that wine diluting it.
This event was offered free to guests booking into Gaucho Piccadilly’s restaurant or bar. For information on their twelve London restaurants other upcoming events, visit www.gauchorestaurants.co.uk.
Paul A Young has three shops in London, with his new flagship store on Soho’s Wardour Street joining those in the City and Angel. Visit www.paulayoung.co.uk.
Vina Patricia 2008 is available for £17.15 from Cavas De Gaucho. Read more about it here.
Date posted: 05/11/2011
Category: News.
Tags: argentine, argentinia, Chocolate, chocolate week, gaucho, london, malbec, Paul A Young, piccadilly, tasting event, wine.
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