What to Drink With Cake
I have always served champagne with cake for special celebrations. Recently, I heard that champagne does not complement cake or desserts. Why is this, and what would y ou suggest in its place?
Annette Michler, Vancouver, Canada
Shirley Sarvis replies:
The most important factor to honor in matching a dessert pleasingly with any wine, whether a sparkling wine such as champagne or still wine, is to keep the sweetness levels of both as nearly equal as possible. Otherwise, the dessert or the wine with the highest sweetness will detract from the other. Most cakes are sweeter than most sparkling wines, especially champagnes. So, after a taste of the sweet cake, the sip of champagne tastes plain or even tart. Some champagnes are lightly but notably sweet to be pleasing with desserts. They are labeled (in order of increasing sweetness) : Extra Dry, which has a slight sweetness, Sec or Dry, DemiSec, and Doux. However, even the sweetest of these, Doux, with about five percent sugar, is not very sweet. With other sparkling wines, the label designations are Extra Dry and Brut, the latter being the sweeter.
Many still dessert wines are sweeter than "dessert" champagnes. Therefore, it's easier to find a sweetness level to match a sweet cake among still dessert wines than among dessert champagnes or other sparkling wines. If you do want to serve champagne with cake, choose a cake of relatively little sweetness, richness, and power of flavor, and one with a texture that's delicate and uncomplicated. Shirley Sarvis is a food and wine writer and consultant in San Francisco.
