Chocovin

Ok, who here is being badgered into opening a bottle of this tonight by spouse/sig other because "it's Valentine's Dayyyyyyyyyyyyy!"?

.


*Tom looks down at floor and slowly raises his hand*

.

.

Champagne is, surrly, the Valentines Day wine*


*which reminds me to hastily get a half bottle out for an aperitif

** I was going to shorten Valentines Day to its initials and swiftly changed my mind ....

** I was going to shorten Valentines Day to its initials and swiftly changed my mind ....

You thought I might have confused it with vas deferens?

You were right to change your mind. I would have.

No way. My wife has even more rigid standards than I. She wouldn't want me to come home with that. "Why is there chocolate in my wine?", she would ask.

PS: I've tried the stuff---strictly in the interests of science, you understand---and it is every bit as vile as it sounds.

Hoke wrote:
PS: I've tried the stuff---strictly in the interests of science, you understand---and it is every bit as vile as it sounds.

Just add some Coconut Rum and you got yourself a Mounds Bar in a glass!

Salute

Hoke wrote:
PS: I've tried the stuff---strictly in the interests of science, you understand---and it is every bit as vile as it sounds.

Just add some Coconut Rum and you got yourself a Mounds Bar in a glass!

Salute

That's insulting to any Mounds bar ever consumed in this country.

[David M. Bueker]

Chocovin: proof of the existence of Satan.

I tasted one at a winery in North Carolina where a sweet red wine had been heavily infused with dark chocolate. It was ghastly.

Ok, we tried it last night. And you know what? It was what it was. As long as one could suspend one's stifling, pedantic, toffee-nosed tendencies, (not that anyone here has them) it was actually pretty enjoyable.

And I think it was pretty enjoyable mostly because...you couldn't tell there was any wine in it. I have to admit I braced myself at first sip, thinking I was about to recoil in disgust. I had visions of squirting Bosco into a glass of Margaux.

But instead of nausea and horror, it was smiles all around. Have you ever had Mozart liqueur? It was a lot like that, but with no discernible alcohol. Seriously, if you'd poured me some without telling me what it was, I would have said it was a glass of chocolate milk. Nice chocolate milk. But just chocolate milk.

My wife laughed. "It needs cookies!" she said. So we got some cookies and dunked them while we watched "Babette's Feast". Cookies dunked in wine. That was a first for me.

It will probably be the last for me as well. While we had fun with it, I don't think I'm going to buy any more Chocovin. A quart of milk and a bottle of Bosco costs about a third the price, and is practically indistinguishable. And doesn't elicit sneers from the cognoscenti

FWIW, I made a very nice "Coeur a la Creme" for our REAL Valentine's dessert. I plated it on a pool of port sauce (Fonseca "Bin 27") flavored with mango butter (because I had a bit of mango butter remaining in the jar that I needed to use), and tarted it up a bit with strewn candied orange peel and dabs of crème fraîch. We enjoyed that too. Of course, it wasn't cookies-in-Chocovin. But then, what is?



.

Here's what I wrote about the choco wine from Shadow Springs in NC

Dark Shadow $18
It’s a red blend that is flavoured with real dark chocolate. The grapes are a Meritage blend of Cabernets Franc & Sauvignon , Merlot and Petit Verdot plus a little Seyval blanc used to lighten it. It smells strongly of chocolate and I think it tastes horrible, but I’m in a minority since visitors to Shadow Springs buy 3,000 cases of it every year.

On one trip to Sonoma County I picked up a bottle of Rosenblum Desiree Zinfandel Dessert Wine (chocolate flavor) but have never opened it. It probably is past its prime if it ever had a prime to begin. It has a 71% "like" rating on CellarTracker.

If nothing else, it's good on ice cream!

If nothing else, it's good on ice cream!

What isn't??