| To serve with billowy chocolate desserts : an AOC Maury Matching wine and chocolate is reputedly among the most difficult pairings to make.
The recommendation is generally to go with vintages offering an aromatic range with roasted notes, cocoa and praline, to echo the bitterness the great dark chocolates create on the palate. The wine also has to have distinct sweetness to counter such bitterness, and to create a balance between harmony and contrast.
With chocolate desserts, there could be no better match than a Maury. The Maury is a natural sweet wine, aged at least two years and produced within the lands of four villages in the north-west sector of the Pyrénées Orientales, on dark shale soils. The wines from this sector were long used to make aperitif wines such as the Byrrh brand.
The Maury appellation provides both vintage type and Rancio style wines. The latter derives its highly characteristic aromas from long aging in wood. The minimum sugar level is high (252 g per liter at harvest), and the wine comes to between 15° and 21° alcohol content. Five grape varieties are authorized for the Maury appellation: Grenache (75%), Maccabeu (10%), and varying degrees of Carignan, Syrah and Cinsault, which cannot exceed 10%. |
Maury cuvée spéciale 10 years old, Domaine du Mas Amiel Here you have a 100% Grenache Maury, hand harvested, from well-exposed shale soils.
Raised ten years in oak casks, after long maceration and one year in demi-johns called "touris". The demi-johns are exposed to all kinds of weather elements and variations.
This mahogany colored wine with brick-red glints resonates with warm notes of prune, cocoa, torrefaction, caramel, all of which are underscored with nuances of dried fruits and roasted walnut.
On the palate, it is fleshy and powerful, with complex mellowness and aromatic persistency.
Can you drink one single wine throughout an entire meal ? | 
