How to Pair Wine and Halloween Candy - CHOW Tip

Jordan Mackay, who has tackled issues such as what booze to drink for breakfast as the wine and spirits columnist for CHOW, delves into uncharted territory as he attempts to pair wine with Smarties, candy corn, Starbursts, and caramel.

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TRANSCRIPT
Happy Halloween. I'm dressed here as the devil, maybe the devil's advocate, because I know after a long night of trick-or-treating you're probably sneaking into your kids candy bag and enjoying the fruits of their labor. But maybe you want a glass of wine and what wine should you drink with this delicious candy? Let's investigate. One thing you're likely to find in your kids candy bag, Smarties. I'm thinking a white wine; we'll try some Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Mm, that's terrible. Ca del Solo, Muscat. I wouldn't say that the Muscat makes the candy better or the candy makes the Muscat better, which is the goal of a great pairing, but they don't offend each other. Starburst's, Halloween favorites. This looks to be red. It's bright, it's fruity; you want a fruity wine. Maybe something like the Beringer Nightingale, which is a botrytized wine. It's been infected with a Noble Rot, which concentrates the sugar and the juice and gives a kind of honeyed, fruity quality. It's creamy; I'm not sure that it really goes with the candy. The hard and fast rule of pairing wines with sweet foods or desserts is that the wine should always be sweeter than the dessert you're pairing with. I'm not sure that that's possible with these candies but let's try again. We're going to try a Late Harvest Zinfandel. It's got berries, sweetness, a little chocolate that goes pretty well. The wine is not quite sweet enough for the candy but it's right in the right direction. The candy corn, we're going to try a Tawny Porto from Croft. The porto provides ample sweetness. There's a little more complexity in the porto, dried fruits, some toast, some toffee. In fact, in this case, I would say that it probably makes the candy corn better, which is not a hard thing to do. The classic caramel, brown butter, toffee, try the Tawny Porto. What I like about this pairing is that the porto brings fruity qualities to the pure caramel flavor of the caramel. It adds in a little bit of dried fig, dried prune, even some slight berry flavors. It is actually a really harmonious combination. I'd say this is a match you could do all the time. I think we've proven that wines can be paired with commercial Halloween candy but thank goodness Halloween comes only once a year.