In fine restaurants, sommeliers delicately pair the perfect wine
to the food of choice for an evening, but what happens when you set
about making food to fit the wine? For Northern California’s San
Francisco Chocolate Factory, something wonderful.
In fine restaurants, sommeliers delicately pair the perfect wine to the food of choice for an evening, but what happens when you set about making food to fit the wine? For Northern California’s San Francisco Chocolate Factory, something wonderful.
The company’s general manager, Andrew Shykofsky, knew that wines went well with desserts, but he wondered if there was a truly perfect chocolate to go along with customers’ favorite wines, and the company began experimenting.
“In food circles, chocolate is generally sold or marketed using its cocoa bean average,” said Shykofsky. “The more cocoa that is used, the darker the chocolate is. Dark chocolate usually starts around 53 percent because you’re using more of the cocoa bean whereas milkchocolate is where you’ve passed sort of a critical threshold – about 45 percent – and now you’ve got a lot of milk and sugar involved.”
Shykofsky and his staff mixed cocoa in varying amounts and invited a flock of industry friends, from chefs and sommeliers to chocolatiers, to come and have a try.
Today they produce a line of chocolates with six cocoa concentrations aimed at pairing with 10 distinct wines. They’re subjectively labeled – titling was decided by votes – but they’re a good starting point for finding your favorite dessert chocolate, said Shykofsky.
Wine Lover’s Chocolates from the San Francisco Chocolate Factory are sold locally at Emilio Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill and online at www.SFChocolate.com.
