Close

Who has never drunk champagne with dessert? While a good way of ending a meal on a festive note, this habit, which dates back to the nineteenth century, is open to serious criticism. Purists go so far as to describe it as a massacre, pointing to sugar as the main barrier to combining desserts with champagne. The sweetness masks the wine's aromatic finesse, making it seem more acidic and harsher.

If you really want to end the meal with champagne, then you could consider a few options. You could serve a vintage or pink champagne with a red fruit salad - made up of cherries, raspberries and strawberries, for example. In this case, the balance is based on the slight sharpness of the fruit, rather than sugar. You can then inhale the vapours from the glass and appreciate the wine's subtlety. This is the time to pull out all the stops with the Grand millésime champagne flutes, which capture the most delicate volatile aromas and accentuate the qualities of the finest vintages.

With a very slightly sweeter dessert, serve a champagne with a high sugar content, sec or demi-sec. The champagne will then add a refreshing touch at a time in the meal when lightness is welcome.

Close

Serving a sweet wine with dessert is like adding sugar to sugar. When stomachs are full, this combination can weigh heavy on the palate and dampen the atmosphere. Does this mean we have to resign ourselves to drinking nothing but water? Not at all, there are many excellent matches between wines and desserts.

The trick is to choose a wine that is rich enough not to be overpowered by the dessert. While dry whites and slightly sweet wines will be no match for the simplest tart, sweet wines and fortified wines are more likely to hold their own and be properly appreciated.

For example, a Tarte Tatin (caramelised apple tart), a dessert particularly rich in stewed and caramelised flavours, would go perfectly with a sweet wine: Quarts-de-Chaume, Sauternes, Canadian ice wine, etc. The glass can also play a role in moderating sweetness. For instance, our Grand Sauternes glass heightens the sensation of acidity by placing the wine on the first third of the tongue, beyond the taste buds that are sensitive to sugar.

With a less intense dessert, you can move down a notch in the sweetness stakes. The most ordinary brioche with apple compote will go very well with the subtle sweetness of a Coteaux de l'Aubance. With just a quick nap required to recover...

Close

While very sweet desserts are difficult to match with most wines, fruit-based desserts are quite another matter. In terms of flavour, fruit adds extra sharpness, freshness and liveliness. The contrast between sugar and acidity can create an absolutely magical new balance.

There is no shortage of examples. A very slightly caramelised red fruit crumble tastes wonderful with a Ruby Port, ideally a young one. Our Open Up Sweet glass is specially designed for very sweet young wines and intensifies the sensation of aromatic richness: in the mouth, notes of blueberry, Morello cherry and raspberry echo each other to the point where it is impossible to tell which is delivering more, the wine or the crumble.

With an orange salad dressed with a hint of honey, Sauternes becomes ethereal. Lemon tart brings out the citrus flavours and exotic style of Muscat de Rivesaltes. Whereas roasted figs will melt the most powerful Banyuls... You can happily serve the most exuberant wines, from Pineau des Charentes to Hungarian Tokay Aszú Eszencia, as the heat of the alcohol will be extinguished on contact with the fruit and the sugar.