Lindt Chocolate and Wine Pairing Party
Lindt recently launched a home party program called Lindt Chocolate R.S.V.P.. At hosted R.S.V.P. home parties, consultants lead tastings and earn extra income by selling Lindt products and gift items. Guests enjoy the tastings while learning some great chocolate tips. When I was contacted by Lindt to host a wine and chocolate preview party, I obviously said yes! Chocolate and wine are two of my favorite things!
The centerpiece of my party was a huge bowl of Lindt candies. It included a variety of their famous Lindt Lindor truffles along with other goodies to boot. My friend M and I fell in love with the truffle in the black wrapper – the extra dark. There were only a few in the bowl and he definitely got the last one!
Prior to the party, I hit up my local wine store to grab a few bottles of wine for the tasting and cut the chocolate in to bite size pieces. We were having our wine and chocolate tasting party after dinner, and it served as a great dessert course.
To taste each chocolate and wine combination, we followed the steps laid out in the R.S.V.P. Party Guide, taking breaks between each pairing to cleanse our palette with some water and crackers. The steps we took were similar to what you may have experienced in other wine tastings.
1. Examine the wine
2. Examine the chocolate
3. Snap the chocolate and examine the break
4. Smell the wine
5. Smell the chocolate
6. Sip the wine
7. Taste the chocolate
8. Sip more wine
We started with the Excellence White Coconut bar since it has the lowest amount of cocoa. The recommended pairings for this chocolate are a sweet Riesling, a sparkling pink or red wine, a Muscat, or Muscato. I have to admit this chocolate was really the shining star of the night. We were all intrigued by the white chocolate and coconut. The mild flavor of the white chocolate paired beautifully with a sweet wine and the subtle coconut flavor really brought everything together nicely.
Next up was the Excellence Extra Creamy Milk bar. The suggested pairings for this chocolate are a buttery Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, or a Merlot. This milk chocolate bar was indeed very creamy. As expected, it paired beautifully with the Pinot Noir I had selected. Milk chocolate is one of my least favorite chocolates, but I really enjoyed the last step of the tasting with this combination. The melty chocolate mixed with the fruity wine brought out new flavor notes in both the wine and the chocolate.
The last chocolate we tasted was the Excellence 70% Cocoa Bar. This dark chocolate should be paired with a Cabernet Savuvignon, a Merlot, a Syrah, or Shiraz. The spiciness from the wine that I chose complimented this bar really well. I’ve always been a huge dark chocolate fan, so it was no surprise that this chocolate was one of my favorites.
I also had some of the white chocolate and bittersweet chocolate for my friends to taste even though it wasn’t part of the official tasting as outlined in the R.S.V.P. Party Guide. At the end of the night, the two favorites among the group were the Excellence White Coconut bar and the bittersweet chocolate bar.
If you’re interested in placing an order or wish to learn more about the opportunities that Lindt Chocolate R.S.V.P. has to offer you can send an email to RSVP Customer Service for more information.
Disclosure: Lindt provided the chocolate and the means to purchase the wines to pair with them. All opinions are my own.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I love freezing dough but somehow most ends up in my tummy unbaked when I do that 🙂
What a great gift! I’m thinking that would be wonderful for all sorts of occasions. Thanks for the idea!
These are adorable and I love that idea! Two questions, though: 1) Were these as good as the cookies from the other recipes? and 2) When you freeze them, do you bake right from frozen?
Great questions Carly – As far as comparing them to the other cookies. I enjoyed the chocolate M&M cookies the best, but they were REALLY chocolatey. The other non-chocolate M&M cookies were a bit more chewy and they had nuts in them, so they had a different vibe. This recipe was more of a classic M&M cookie for sure.
As far as baking from frozen, you can def just go straight from freezer to oven. Bake them ~13 minutes instead of ~11 and take them out when they look done.
these were delicious!
they look so cute all frozen up 🙂
I love the pink and red M&Ms. Thanks for the idea of freezing the cookie dough.
I was going to ask you the same thing as Carly, well the first question. These cookies are cute. Your freezing method reminded me that I have a bunch of sugar cookies still in the freezer! Do you know how long cookies can stay in the freezer?
I don’t know how long they will last in the freezer. I have a tendency to forget about things in my freezer… I’d guess a couple months? Anyone have ideas?
What festive little cookies 🙂 I love them! I also like the fact that you froze them. I bet they were delicious. Make sure to enter the All Through the Year Cheer event for Valentine’s Day 🙂
I think that sounds like a great way to spend valentine’s day. It can be intimidating the way it’s so hyped up. The cookies look very festive, love ’em!
We don’t do “valentine’s day” either since my MIL was born on the 14th and daughter’s birthday is the 15th – besides, its more important to say you love someone everyday, not just one day out of the year. Love the idea about freezing the cookie dough in preshaped form and giving that away. Wonderful idea!
I am looking for cookies that travel well for my soldier adopted through Soldier’s Angels and these look like a winner!!
Mmm, these were so tasty! Happy Valentine’s Day!
These are just too cute!! I love M&M cookies too!!
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Just had to add my two cents on the idea of giving cookie dough frozen and ready to be baked – genius! For some reason, I’ve never thought of that, even though I’ve given cookies frozen to people to be defrosted when they’re ready to eat. I love the dough idea!
YUM-these look absolutely delicious! I love the pink and red M&Ms!