Wine and chocolate: a family affair

A group of nine Côtes-de-l’Orbes wine producers are presenting their wines at the Caveau de Romainmôtier, along with chocolates from Pascale Philippe’s chocolate shop Passionnément Chocolat in Yverdon-les-Bains.

In college I used to buy dark chocolate and a good bottle of Bordeaux and go to the local art cinema to consume all three together, so I was excited to learn that someone had finally decided to “marry” chocolate and red wine in the form of a tasting.

For the Côtes-de-l’Orbes wine tasting, Pascale Philippe and the wine producers carefully chose an assortment that would fit the tastes of everyone, adults and children alike. After all we’re in Switzerland, and we all know our chocolate, so the assortment has to be large if it wants to meet the tastes of everyone. The selection is varied, and includes 10 different chocolates:

• 40.5% Ghana
• 70% Venezuela
• 85% Abinao
• Orange ganache
• Salt caramel ganache
• Praline with pine nuts and citons confits
• Crunchy feuillantine praline
• Jasmine-flavored praline
• Chunky chocolate pavé flavored with Raisinée, a fruit-flavored fortified wine originally from around Fribourg
• Pepper-flavored carré

The wine producers came up with four different “formulas”:

Gourmet tasting: Formule Dégustation

With this offer, for CHF9, you can taste 0.5 dl of two different wines and mix it with a selection of four different chocolates.

Chocolate lovers tasting: Formule Gourmandise

This formula lets you taste 0.5 dl of three different wines and taste six different chocolates for CHF15.

Duo tasting: Formule Duo

Several people can share this formula. You choose 0.5 dl of eight different wines and try them with 20 different chocolates for CHF40.

Formula for children and teenagers: Formule jeune

What’s really special about this is that you can bring the whole family. This wine tasting doesn’t have to be an all-adult affair. The Formule jeune lets under-18ers taste four different chocolates and two different artisanal juices from the region for CHF6.

If you’re not interested in the chocolate, you can of course just taste the wines, along with a selection of sausage and ham or on their own.

How to get there: Place du Bourg, 1323 Romainmôtier, Switzerland

Open Saturday, Sunday and holidays from 11 h to 19 h, from 1st May to 30 September.

I am not a lover of sweets, in fact most of the time I dislike them, which is quite a handy thing for my figure.

Still, sometimes, nostalgia takes over. I remember my great aunt’s fresh coconut layer cake, with the layers stacked high like a cathedral, and how the white coconut reminded me of angel’s wings. I remember moist chocolate layer cakes from childhood birthday parties. Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, popular when I was in college. As a little girl, how pretty the name “red velvet cake” sounded. Gingerbread with hot butterscotch sauce on a cold winter’s day, made by my best friend’s mother on Saturday afternoons.

And no matter how good French pastries are, sometimes I just want an old-fashioned, American-style cake.

epicurious.com has just come out with a list of their 30 favorite cake recipes, and many of them are revised versions of old-fashioned recipes. More fresh fruit, less butter and sugar, which give the recipes a welcome modern edge.

If you’re really feeling nostalgic and want to forget about your cholesterol and waistline for just a day or two, oldfashionedliving.com gives a number of Grandma-style recipes, as does old-fashioned-recipes.com.

Most all of the ingredients are available here. If you can’t find them locally, please feel free to contact us and we’ll tell you where to buy them or what you can use as substitute.