Four Gourmet Dessert Wine Pairings

We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of springtime, hoping for long, dreamy days and cheerful flowers. In the meantime, we’re making the most of the cooler months by enjoying comfort foods and creative pairings. This week, we set out to find perfect gourmet pairings for our Solera in Perpetuum. This port-style dessert wine bears rich layered complexity in each sip, with just the right amount of luscious sweetness. Because of the wine’s richness, food pairings for dessert wines can be tricky. The recipes we have selected represent the art of harmony and contrast of flavor and texture. Each offers a deliciously complex interplay of savory, sweet, bitter, and more. Let your taste buds sing! 

Blue Cheese & Cherry Crostatas

Recipe by Emma Laperruque with Food 52 

These beautiful crostatas offer an elevated and elegant appetizer. Rich juicy cherries make a luscious flavor bridge, complemented by a perfect savory funk from the blue cheese. 

Pear and Roquefort Macaroni and Cheese

Recipe by Uncomplicated Chef 

Mac and cheese is a dish for all ages. This recipe takes an ideal comfort food to the next level with balanced interplay of complex favor and deliciously creamy carbs. 

Salted Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Tart

Recipe by The Creative Bite 

This impressive and truly decadent dessert is easier than it appears. Savor the delectable interplay of sweetness, bitterness, and just a touch of salt, maximizing the harmony with the pairing. 

Dark Chocolate Cranberry Walnut Cookies

Recipe by Beyond the Butter 

The combination of nuts and fruit within these delightful cookies pick up on subtle notes of toasted almond and hazelnut in dessert wine in addition to the deep cocoa and dried fruit. Mouthwatering!

Our Solera dessert wine features dense aromas of fruit preserves, toasted almond, hazelnut, and jammy flavors of blackberry, dried plum, and cocoa. A rich, sweet mouthfeel gives way to a lingering finish. Our recommendations center on cheese and chocolate, the tried-and-true companions of wine. Blue cheese, in particular, is the savory soulmate of this dessert wine. Dark chocolate, with its impeccable bittersweetness, compliments our Solera in Perpetuum in ways nothing else can. When in doubt, choose pairings that build on these flavors and add accent notes of fruit or nuts, just like the recipes given above. 

With February nearly over, our Wine of the Month sale on Solera in Perpetuum is coming to an end! Make sure to get yours now so you don’t miss out on this discount.

True Love: Wine & Cheese

In honor of Valentine’s day, we’re celebrating the soulmates of the fine food world: wine and cheese. There’s no denying that they are an exemplary couple! True love makes each individual better, and that’s exactly what you taste when a wine meets the perfect cheese. This week, we gathered some of our tasting room ambassadors to play matchmaker, sharing their favorite duos of Ruby Hill wine with exceptional cheese.

The superstar of pairings is our Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine can go steady with a manchego, asiago, aged cheddar, or a black pepper BellaVitano for a flavor combination that will have you reaching for more!

Lauri recommends pairing a bold asiago with our Reserve Petite Sirah for a deep, rich combination. Rick is partial to a high-quality manchego, which he recommends alongside Petite Sirah or one of our heavier blends, such as Riverbed Red. Manchego will absorb tannin, so don’t be afraid to go bold!

Karen enjoys the combination of Peacock Patch Zin and a black pepper cheese like BellaVitano. Paul is partial to a nice smoky cheddar with our Peacock. Both of these mouthwatering combinations are a match made in heaven. 

For our white wine lovers, Sue recommends complementing your Chardonnay with a mild stilton with apricots, or a baked brie with fig jam. Anything luscious and creamy, like a swiss cheese, will have your tastebuds singing! For Sauvignon Blanc, Ami suggests pairing up with a lemon zest infused chevre. 

For those who like to balance their sweet tooth with something savory and satisfying, Ami and Karen recommend pairing our Solera Dessert wine, the wine of the month, with a blue cheese. For this combination, Lauri suggests a Maytag Blue, but a Stilton will do as well!

All of the cheeses in the Ruby Hill deli are right at home with a wine pairing. The Garlic BellaVitano, for example, has a pizza-esque quality, making it the ideal mate for our Grapeful Red. Our Champagne-infused Yancey’s Fancy cheese is fittingly enjoyable with our Sparkling wine. The Balsamic BellaVitano, often featured on our bus tour menu, makes an agreeable companion for any red wine of your choosing!

We hope you’ll indulge in these pairings. You’ll know you’ve found a lovely wine and cheese match when they are better together when they are apart. Your senses will buzz!

If Valentine’s day isn’t your thing, this guide is also perfect for putting together a cheese board for the big game this Sunday—or any occasion, for that matter. Cheers!

We invite you to share your favorite pairings with us: @rubyhillwines