If you love wine and love chocolate (or even just kind of like one of them), this is a great way to spend an evening learning from the experts and sampling some of the local produce. As a joint collaboration between the Margaret River Chocolate Factory and Coward & Black Vineyards in Swan Valley, we took our time to taste separately and then combined delicious pairings of local wines and local chocolate delicacies.

As someone who enjoys both wine and chocolate, but never thought to try them together, this was an interesting experience to discover that not only do they go well together (I normally have my wine with savoury pairings), but they can both influence and completely change the taste of one another. Whether it’s a flavoured truffle that makes a non-alcoholic wine tolerable, or the way a dark chocolate and dry red together somehow makes the pair taste sweeter, in future I’ll definitely be having some more wine with my dessert.

With a wide range of wines on offer (reds and whites, sweet and dry), and several low alcohol options for any who prefer, even rare wine drinkers are likely to find something they enjoy. Not only traditional wines, but including dessert wines and a couple of liquors, this is definitely not one to try on an empty stomach, and maybe plan for a bit of a stroll afterwards before you drive home (or just take public transport to be safe).

So whether you’re a novice or a connoisseur, join the experts and learn more about both wine, chocolate and how to have more of both, whilst also supporting some amazing local WA producers!