Does it make sense to serve champagne for dessert ?

During a festive meal, it is common to drink a glass of champagne for dessert. Does this deal make sense ? Find out thanks to Beaux-Vins.

In the article " Wine and foie gras pairing ", I was talking about the wine tasting order. A reader asked on the Beaux-vins Facebook page : "Is it possible to drink champagne for dessert ? ". It is true that the question may arise since the majority of festive meals end with a glass of champagne, but it is fundamentally a mistake to be avoided.

Why a tasting order ?

During a meal during which several wines are tasted - or during any tasting occasion elsewhere — , care should be taken to follow as much as possible an order of tasting of the wines. The important thing is not to regret the previous wine, the only way is to go crescendo, which leads to follow 2 principles :

• Taste light wines before powerful wines
• On the same appellation, start with the most recent vintage

There are five flavors that shape taste: sugar, the acid, the sea, salty and umami. The basic flavors of wine that are sweet, acid and bitterness, have different persistence in the mouth. Acidity produces fluid salivation, and is the shortest on the palate, bitterness has a more marked persistence, while sweet is the heaviest and most persistent flavor. An acidic wine will be difficult to reveal itself after a sweet one for this simple reason..

The principle is the same for the order of the dishes of a meal : we never start with dessert. The taste buds would be saturated with sugar and the taste of the next dish would be reduced. During a wine tasting, it is therefore important to follow an established order : acidic wines, then the bitter wines, then the sweet wines.

Associating champagne and dessert is often a mistake

We have just seen the reasons justifying the tasting of sparkling wines at the start of tasting so as not to regret a wine. Serving wine during a meal must also meet the principles of’Food and wine pairing. The most important thing in pairing food and wine is not to create any contrast or opposition that could erase the taste qualities of one or the other.

Festive meals are often plentiful. Arrived at dessert, the senses are already charged with what may have been drunk or eaten before. The first risk is therefore not to be able to perceive all the finesse of a wine as delicate as champagne..

Often, the champagne served during a meal is brut, that is to say with less than 12 grams of sugar per liter. As we have understood previously, sugar dominates acid. So, the sweetness of the dessert will clash with the acidity of the champagne. The latter will lose its taste qualities and the most important risk is to perceive it to be much more acid than it really is, on the verge of greenness.

This disagreement is even stronger when the dessert is chocolate.. Chocolate goes very well with sugar but goes very poorly — but then very very badly — with acid. Unfortunately, the taste that dominates the champagne is indeed the acidity and the latter will be a total break with the sweet and creamy bitterness of chocolate.

— it is also a good way to test the loyalty of your wine merchant : ask advice for a big occasion with a chocolate dessert. If he offers you a dry champagne, you have the right to turn on your heels instantly —

How to serve champagne for dessert

To respect the wine tasting order, the only possible solution is to accompany the whole meal with different sparkling wines so as not to regret it after another wine. — it was to move the knife in the wound —.

You get the point, we strongly advise against pairing champagne and dessert. For the more stubborn of you, I advise you to prefer a bottle of mild or semi-dry champagne which will pair better since it is sweeter.

For the red fruit desserts, I advise you to bring a bottlerosé champagne. Made from an alliance of red and white wines, the rosé champagne is more full-bodied, with a flavor reminiscent of strawberries. So the two combine well since the fruity aromas of champagne ferhave echoing the aromas of the fruits themselves.

Sweet wines for desserts