What wine goes with dessert and chocolate?

Why these wines work with dessert and chocolate

The most important rule in dessert pairing is also the simplest: the wine should be something sweeter than the pudding. If the dessert is sweeter than the wine, the wine tastes thin, sour and oddly bitter; if the wine is sweeter, it tastes rich and balanced, and the dessert seems lighter. That is why the list here is short and made up entirely of sweet and fortified wines.

With fruit tarts and crème brûlée

Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú, both made from grapes concentrated by noble rot, have the honeyed richness and the bright acidity to suit fruit tarts, crème brûlée and anything with apricot or almond. Sweet Muscat, floral and grapey, is lovely with fruit puddings and lighter, creamy desserts.

With chocolate

Chocolate is the hardest thing to pair, because it is bitter and coats the mouth, and it needs a wine with real power: a Port from the Douro, a dark, sticky fortified Muscat or a Madeira.

With sticky toffee and Christmas pudding

Sticky toffee pudding, Christmas pudding and anything with dried fruit or caramel meet their match in Pedro Ximénez, black and syrupy; some people pour it straight over vanilla ice cream, and it works. Serve sweet wines cold and in small glasses. Their intensity means a little goes a long way, and a single bottle can see a table of six through pudding. The same bottles do fine work with blue cheese.