Sue and I don’t really need an excuse to make s’mores. What could be better, especially on a warm summer evening, than Hershey’s milk chocolate and a toasted marshmallow wedged between crispy graham crackers? So when August 10 rolled around (National S’mores Day, but you probably already knew that), we were all set.

What Could Be Better?

What could be better than s’mores? Well, how about wine and s’mores? It is not a ridiculous idea and we are always on the lookout for unexploited wine-tasting occasions. So I asked my AI intern to scour the internet for wine and s’mores pairings and it turns out there are lots of interesting ideas.

Even better, my intern explained that there is more than one kind of s’mores. Yes, the Hershey’s milk chocolate bar is the classic, but you can make variations on the classic using other kinds of chocolate bars. The internet even suggested different wine pairings for different chocolate s’mores variants.

And so we established the Wine & S’mores Challenge 2025. Each night we would pit classic s’mores against a challenger made with chocolate bars from Alter Eco foods, which has been promoting National S’mores Day. We’d see if we liked the classic or the challenger better and try out wine pairings, too. A bit complicated (did anyone say “rabbit hole”?) but a lot of fun, too. Here are some preliminary results.

First Challenge: Inconclusive

Our first challenge test was a mixed success. We set the classic s’mores against a challenger made with Alter Eco Classic Blackout, which is 85 percent cacao (!). The internet suggested pairing this with an old vine Zinfandel. We chose the Husch Mendocino Old Vines Zin from the cellar.

The s’mores comparison was interesting. Milk vs dark chocolate was an interesting contrast. Sue preferred the classic Hershey’s, but was not mad at the Classic Blackout. But the wine pairing didn’t work. The Husch Zin was great with dinner, but got wiped out by the s’mores. Maybe that 85 percent dark chocolate was just too bitter? Or maybe the internet recommendation was based on one of those sweetish jammy supermarket  Zinfandels. (The Husch Zin is dry and elegant).  In any case, the result was interesting enough to justify further experimentation.

Second Challenge: Plausible Success

The second challenge was classic s’mores versus dark chocolate and raspberry paired with a Cabernet Franc. Interesting! Our challenger s’mores was made with Alter Eco Raspberry Creme (70 percent cacao chocolate). Our wine choice was a Paradise Springs Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, Cabernet Franc (a Virginia Governor’s Cup award-winning wine).

The Paradise Springs Cab Franc was a great choice for this. It was delicious with dinner and held up to the s’mores. I think it even enhanced the chocolate-raspberry s’mores. But, as Sue noted, the raspberry got lost a bit surrounded as it was by chocolate, marshmallow, etc.  So this was not completely successful, but very interesting because the result was unexpected by us.

Freewheeling Experiments

We decided to break away from the internet’s s’mores pairing list and see if we could come up with something spontaneously. Here are the wines and chocolates we mixed and matched for our experiments. Which combinations do  you think worked best? Which were doomed from the start?

Alter Eco chocolates: dark chocolate with burnt caramel, dark chocolate with brown butter, dark chocolate with creme brulee, dark chocolate raspberry,  and classic blackout 85 percent.

The wines: Lions de Suduiraut Sauternes (a Costco purchase), Valdespino Contrabandista Amontillado sherry, Kopke Ruby Port.

We don’t have final results to report because there are so many permutations to test (don’t you just love homework like this?). We need to consider the original Hershey’s s’mores versus each challenger plus the various possible wine pairings. So we don’t have conclusions as much as tentative observations. Here is what we think so far.

The OG is the OG. Sue enjoyed the experiments and kept coming up with new pairings to try. But she never found anything she liked better than the OG original Hershey’s s’mores. A classic. That milk chocolate taste nicely balances the other ingredients. And Hershey’s squares melt a lot better than more “serious” chocolate, which is a plus.

Fun to Experiment. But it is really interesting to experiment. The brown butter and burnt caramel s’mores were delicious, for example, sort of like more intense versions of the original. The classic blackout s’mores was challenging, but memorable.

Sweet Meets Sweet. We liked the sweeter wines for pairing. The old rule of thumb in pairing is that the wine needs to be sweeter than the dessert for pairing. The Zinfandel we started with was overwhelmed by the sweetness of the marshmallow. The Cab Franc just about held its own. The Sauternes was a good match for the brown butter and burnt caramel s’mores, although Sue thought that the wine might have been better on its own or with a cheese course.

And the Winner Is … What’s the most popular wine pairing so far? I would have to say it was the OG Hershey’s s’mores and the Alter Eco Brown Butter s’mores paired with the Valdespino Amontillado. The sherry is so opulent and both goes with and stands up to the s’mores, which are sort of variations on a luscious theme. Great together, but each is excellent on its own, too.

Endless Possibilities. There is a lot more work to do on this project because the chocolates, s’mores combinations, and wine pairings are nearly endless. Many thanks to the people at Alter Eco for putting us on this interesting wine pairing path.