AIrving

Last updated 01:00, Thursday, 16 August 2007

Top Tipples with Alan Irving

Top Tippler: Alan Irving

CHOCOLATE and wine do go together – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But I’m not so sure about marijuana, which believe it or not once went into the making of a certain wine which was consumed locally. More on that later.

As for the cocoa, I’m pleased to report that wine- flavoured chocolate has now arrived on the market, and it’s being sold exclusively in Whitehaven by independent wine merchant Richardson & Sons on Lowther Street.

This dark choc is available in three of the most popular grape flavours: merlot, pinot noir and shiraz. I have no particular favourite, they’re all absolutely gorgeous.

It’s made in Australia and Gerard Richardson tells me he discovered it completely by accident: “It was featured in a specialist magazine, and eventually the manufacturers decided to import some to the UK. We were lucky enough to get some of it and the rest has gone to shops down south.”

With the grape flavours soaking beautifully into the chocolate through the currants, it’s a delicious combination in itself, but you can always add to the taste by adding a good bottle of red.

And it just so happens that Richardson & Sons have a very unusual one on their shelves from an unusual vineyard, too. Not from Australia like the choc but from sunny California, famed for its zinfandel, specifically the Bonny Doon vineyard which claims to “empathise greatly with the underdog Ugly Duckling” by promoting the misunderstood grape varieties of the world.

Step forward the carignan, normally associated with France’s Rhone valley and the Languedoc-Roussillon where along with the likes of grenache and syrah this ancient variety goes into the making of rich robust reds such as fitou and corbieres.

You’ll rarely see carignan on the label itself, unlike this Bonny Doon special.

Says Mr Richardson: “Carignan is a very old and an unusual grape variety with more expansive flavours than grenache, so its nice to see Bonny Doon bringing it to the fore.

“All in all this is a fantastic vineyard: quirky, too. A few years ago they reputedly sold a wine that had marijuana in it around the time that all these happy cakes were being made in London where posh families were making scones containing the marijuana leaf.

“Bonny Doon allegedly knocked out a wine with the leaf in it as well. The story broke in the international press just at the point when we’d had a batch arrive in our warehouse on the harbour.

“It sold out within 24 hours and we never did find out whether it contained the illicit substance as claimed, but it was certainly popular. Needless to say we had to quickly remove it from our wine list.”

Bonny Doon’s carignan doesn’t come cheap at £13.90 but you couldn’t have a more fulsome red to go with a hearty meal such as duck – let alone chocolate.