(Bloomberg) <\m> The heart-shaped, shiny red satin box with gooey-centered chocolates has been the classic gift on Valentine’s Day for as long as I can remember. The urge to pair it with a bottle of wine is a recent phenomenon.On one side of the conundrum over what wine goes with chocolate are those who still believe that it’s a notorious killer of fine wine, as deadly as artichokes or as tricky as asparagus.

On the other are the growing number of wine-drinking hedonists like me, who’d like to combine two sexy pleasures at one go <\m> certainly on Valentine’s Day, which is all about romance and passion and perfect matches.

The quest for the right bottle to add a seductive touch to the traditional sweet gesture has gained momentum in the US.

That’s thanks to a sharp rise of artisan chocolate makers (Scharffen Berger, Cocoa Pete’s, Guittard) and an influx of shops (and Web sites) of great European chocolatiers such as Richart, Leonidas and Teuscher.

Their high-end creamy truffles and dark, rich, bittersweet products with high cocoa content ($50 and up per pound) have upgraded the taste buds of hard-core chocoholics raised on Hershey’s kisses.

Some claim they go much better with wine, especially dry reds like cabernet sauvignon.

Really? Time for serious research. I head to Belgique, my local chocolaterie run by Belgian-trained Pierre Gilissen in a cute red and yellow carriage house.

Armed with an array of chocolates and a few seductive desserts, I grab a variety of sweet wines from my cellar and throw in a couple of dry reds.

I quickly reaffirm one key pairing rule: Make sure the wine is sweeter than the chocolate. Otherwise, the chocolate sucks up the wine’s fruit and the wine tastes thin and sharp.

I also discover that the type of chocolate — white, milk, semisweet, bitter or flavoured — matters a lot.

Sweet milk chocolate, the kiddie favourite, is trickiest. The milk coats your tongue and kills just about any wine’s flavour. White chocolate is almost as bad.

Which explains why all the gourmet attention is on dark chocolate, whose bitter roasted character and higher tannin enhance certain wines.

Even so, be warned: All chocolate has a smooth, thick, taste-bud-smothering texture that dominates all but the most full-bodied (and a few sweet sparkling) wines.

Recommendations? Skip sweet whites like Sauternes and late harvest riesling — they have too much acidity to be good matches. Reds are almost always more satisfying.

With chocolate-dipped strawberries, I’d pick fizzy, sweet, fresh-berry-flavoured 2005 Coppo Brachetto d’Acqui ($30) from Italy’s Piedmont region.

The bubbles contrast with the chocolate’s texture; the dark pink colour is highly romantic. (Not bad with a creamy chocolate truffle, either.)

The traditional choice, port, is always reliably chocolate- friendly because of its sensuous, ripe-fruit sweetness and high alcohol.

Think of it as matching power with power. Go for an intense, plummy 2000 Late Bottled Vintage from Taylor Fladgate ($20).

Two red vins doux naturels from the south of France, 2003 Domaine du Mas Blanc Banyuls Rimage La Coume ($50) and 2003 Mas Amiel Maury ($25), are good all-rounders.

Made primarily from the grenache grape, they’re less sweet and slightly lower in alcohol than port, have lovely plump red fruit flavours and are heaven with chocolates with higher cocoa content and crunchy chocolate-covered espresso beans.

Unctuous, scented and seductive muscats from Australia (“stickies,” as they say Down Under) are a great choice.

Try the non-vintage Yalumba Museum Reserve Muscat ($18 for a half- bottle) with its spicy, raisiny flavours, or powerful, velvety- textured non-vintage Quady Elysium black muscat from California ($12 for a half-bottle).

On to the dry reds. As in love, a match can bloom when you least expect it. New World high-alcohol fruit bombs are not my favourite type of wine.

But with one of the least-sweet chocolates, the lavish, youthful cherry-berry fruit in the 2003 Girard Artistry California cab blend ($45) was pure delight.

Wineries, seeing an unmissable marketing possibility this February 14, are working overtime to encourage promiscuous pairings.

Over the next two weeks you can pick your own favourite combos at dozens of chocolate-and-wine fests nationwide, from Napa Valley’s Copia Center (A Match Made in Heaven! and Death by Chocolate) to New York City’s bubbly bars Flute (Dessert Champagne and Chocolate) to wine country extravaganzas like Seneca Lake Wine Trail’s 31-winery-stop Wine and Chocolate weekend in upstate New York.Elin McCoy writes on wine and spirits for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own