Plan a winter wine country escape just made for red wine and chocolate lovers! Wineries all around the Yakima Valley are getting ready for one of the most delicious weekends of the year! Take a tasting tour to sip and savor Yakima Valley red wines perfectly paired with delectable chocolate creations.
Red Wine and Chocolate is an annual tradition each Presidents Day weekend in Yakima Valley Wine Country. This year, the weekend kicks off with Valentine’s Day! Whether you plan a weekend for fun with friends or you’re looking for a little romance, you’ll find the perfect fit. Valley wineries are planning a weekend filled with special tastings, carefully crafted pairings and more.
Come discover your favorite chocolate pairing! Will it be port-infused brownies, s’mores over the fire pits, dark chocolate-raspberry confections, house-crafted truffles, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate fondue, chocolate charcuterie or specialty chocolate-covered treats from Chuckar Cherries? Of course, you’ll find more than chocolate on the calendar and on the menu! Some wineries will have live music and special happenings planned and several host food trucks or offer wine country fare such as charcuterie and other house-made bites.
Keep an eye on the calendar as we add events leading up to a wonderful weekend!
Wine Country Lodging Special Lodging Offers How to Pair Red Wine and ChocolatePick up Yakima Valley wine maps, information on the special treats wineries are offering, winery hours, and a comprehensive entertainment listing for your weekend. Shop a variety of Yakima Valley made products in the gift shop, as well as unique souvenir items.
Main Visitors Center
Tues - Sat 10:00am - 4:00pm
Closed Sunday and Monday Presidents Day
The events listings above only contain members of Yakima Valley Tourism. If you would like to receive information regarding membership, please contact the Director of Member Services at (509) 575-3010.
Member Wineries of Yakima Valley Tourism participating in Red Wine and Chocolate can submit their event here, to add their food and wine pairings.
Both wine and chocolate can be very complex on their own, so keep it simple with three basics:
Since chocolate coats your mouth when you eat it, you'll need a wine that's big enough to cut through its richness. Try looking for flavors in both that are similar to one another. Use your taste buds. The most important factor in all this, as in all pairings of food and wine, is that only you can decide what tastes best. Use the following guidelines to help you get started, and then let your taste buds lead the way.
White chocolate, though not a true chocolate due to its absence of cacao, is a super-sweet blend of sugar, milk and cocoa butter. Try a Riesling or Gewürztraminer.
Milk chocolate, which contains a small amount of cacao, is the sweetest of the real chocolates with its high sugar content. Remember rule one and choose a sweeter wine than chocolate, or the pairing might leave your mouth tasting like a rubber band. For milk chocolate, your best match might just be a sweet and tasty tawny port. But if you find the right bottle of pinot noir, you won't be disappointed.
Chocolate that contains about 50 to 70 percent cacao is known as semisweet, the sweetest of the dark chocolates. With tones that are nutty, spicy, or earthy, semisweet dark chocolate has a balanced and less sweet aftertaste than milk or white chocolate. Cabernets or Bordeauxs will tend to bring out any fruity or peppery nuances in the chocolate, while a ruby port is considered a classic pairing with semisweet chocolate.
The richest, most intensely flavored chocolates are known as the bittersweet darks, which contain the least amount of sugar, and the greatest amount of cacao - anywhere from about 71 and 100 percent. Their bitter, roasted flavoring is so intense, that it really needs a strong red wine to balance the taste. Zinfandels are the go-to when it comes to pairing wine and bittersweet dark. Since these chocolates are the least sweet, your pallet of appropriate pairings is much wider, meaning you can also experiment with many of the sweeter wines like ports and muscats.
Once you've got a great pairing, it's nothing but bliss. Start by tasting the wine, allowing its flavors to fully saturate your mouth. Then take a bite of the chocolate, letting it slowly melt on your tongue.
and you might never consider having wine without chocolate ever again.
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