Appellation Australia

Fast Facts: Country: Australia Region: Shoalhaven Coast Winemaker: Tamburlaine Winery Variety: Chardonnay Closure: Cork RRP: $24 (375ml bottle)

Clotilde from Chocolate & Zucchini hosts Wine Blogging Wednesday #13 with a theme of “Like Wine for Chocolate”, the idea being to bake a chocolate cake and then choose a wine to match it. Clotilde even kindly provided a recipe for a chocolate cake.

Read on to find out how things turned out.

Well as you can see from this picture, the cake turned out somewhat flatter than I had planned, entirely due to using too large a pan to bake in. Fortunately it still tasted fantastic. Clotilde’s recipe is highly recommended, especially considering how simple it was to make.

A little bit about the wine and winery:

Established: 1991
Production: 3500 cases
Website: http://www.cambewarraestate.com.au

Tasting Note: Golden syrup coloured. Evident botrytis on the nose alongside apples and pears, the smell was reminiscent of a sparkling wine that has a small dash of Pinot Noir in combination with Chardonnay. The palate was of medium intensity. There was some sweetness, most of which was balanced by acid. The wine was slightly short on the finish. A decent wine, but lacks the intensity and the flavour of a great dessert wine.

The wine did match well with the chocolate cake though with the sweetness in the wine in harmony with the flavours of the cake.

Verdict: 85 points, with a value rating of Poor.

See “How to interpret my scores” for an explanation of how the above scores were reached.