It’s that time of year when orange Halloween tchotchkes are everywhere, and costumed kids beg for candy at your door. Just for fun this year, plop down on a lawn chair with your plastic pumpkin filled with various candy, grab a glass of wine and harangue the Sponge Bob/Avatar characters passing in the street. But what to drink with Halloween candy? I can’t say this was an easy question to answer, but it was a queasy one. Mixing various candy together with several types of wine in one stomach proved not a job for the diabetic or the gastronomically challenged but a necessary one to warn readers of the do’s and don’ts.
Since there are no traditional guidelines when pairing candy with wine, we started with nothing but ideas and opinions. I didn’t think any white wine would complement our selection of candy since white wines have too much acidity to match well with sweeter items. Sauvignon Blanc proved too acidic, but a slightly sweeter, less acidic Chenin Blanc surprised us by matching perfectly with cherry and watermelon Jolly Ranchers. Who knew?
You might ask what “matching perfectly” means. When wine and food complement each other, it’s like a great couple. No flavor characteristic gets overshadowed by either party, and imperfections are balanced out by each other. For instance, drinking a bold, tannic Cabernet with a salt-seasoned steak creates a wonderful flavor combo, since the salt suppresses the bitterness in wine, allowing the fruit to show through.
The fruit in the Chardonnay, often a difficult wine to match with any food, shimmied up affectionately to the traditionally Halloween candy corns. The softness of the oaky, buttery California Chardonnay didn’t overpower the candy.
When we delved into the red wines, that’s when the fun began. Reese’s, with its chocolate and peanut butter coupling, proved the most difficult candy to mate, but the Oregon Pinot Noir came close, as well as the Argentinean Malbec (some recommendations). Mounds, the coconut item for the tasting, loved everything in the lighter red category. The fruity, Californian Merlot and the French Beaujolais tasted really spectacular with the dark chocolate coating and soft, sweet coconut. California Cabernet Sauvignon also liked the dark chocolate of the Mounds. This last one was the biggest shocker.
Snickers was tough, because of the funky peanut addition. Salty peanuts are really best with beer, but add chocolate and nougat (whatever the hell that is), and you’ve got an alcoholic beverage dilemma. The best pairing, which still kinda sucked, was the California Cabernet. Even though the salt in the peanuts helped tame the tannins, the chocolate threw it off. If your candy of choice is Snickers, stick with sparkling wine.
Yes, if you want to be super sophisticated in front of the little costumed tots, drink a domestic sparkling wine or Extra Dry Champagne (see recommendations). The tart sweetness will balance out pretty much any candy — or any dish for that matter — making friends with all parties. The other adults will be wildly jealous as you savor every bite of your caramel filled Milky Way.
I personally find the idea of mating wine, (carefully fermented with grapes treated like children) with this chemical Frankensteins we call candy quite revolting. I can`t even say how much cocoa mass there actually is in these chocolates. Many of these are simply colored organic esters made to smell/taste like some food, even fooling some that fruits actually taste like that.
I am getting old and crotchety though, give me nice old world baked pastries, dried fruits, fruit preserves..even some nice berries/melons. now those are sweets that go with wine. Ok now I am hungry…time to eat
@Rishi, I bet you’re fun at parties!