No, not a chocolate-flavored wine, but a great wine to pair with chocolate, especially cake and cookies and other confections. ‘Smores, perhaps? No need for stuffy gourmandise when the wine is as fun as a Brachetto d’Acqui.
If you’ve only seen one Brachetto d’Acqui, it was probably Rosa Regale, produced and imported by Banfi. It has the advantage of being made in relatively large quantities and being backed by a powerful and effective marketing empire. It’s also delicious, featuring bright cherry and strawberry flavors and enticing aromas of rose petals. It typically sells for about $18 - $20.
Brachetto has some other advantages as a dessert wine for your Valentine’s dinner – it’s bright red color suggests romance, as do the bubbles of its light mousse. It’s also low in alcohol – Rosa Regale chimes in at 7 %, which is actually a tad high for Brachetto. That means it won’t knock you out of contention for any post-dinner activities.
And oh yes – any leftover Brachetto will do just nicely with breakfast the next morning.
I’ll have more recommendations for Brachetto and other frothy sweet Italian reds throughout the week, and in this Wednesday’s column in The Washington Post.
