Contributed by Marshall Goldman of Pocket Wine Assistant

Pocket Wine Assistant, in partnership with VinVillage has been offering a link to buy WineTime bars for several weeks. We felt that we have the responsibility - and curiosity to try these bars and offer our opinions to our audience. First, WineTime bars are not, as some people believe prior to researching - a solid dark chocolate bar with fruit and nuts. When I first posted the note about reviewing the WineTime bar, my Sister-in-Law thought that we were going to a wine bar! It is actually a food bar primarily consisting of dates and almonds with a dark chocolate coating and numerous other ingredients blended into the fruit and nut mix. Essentially, the bar is a high quality snack/food bar. The calorie intake is 190 - about the same as other food bars. The primary selling point of these bars is its' trans-resveratrol - the compound in many deep red wines which is known for its health promoting qualities. But, is it good?

We decided to try the bar along with 4 wines that we thought had a good chance of complimenting the bar - as if it were to be used as a dessert served with wine. Firstly, we liked the bars. The dates and nuts are rich, flavorful, and offer a hearty, chewy texture. The bar offers a reasonable amount of sweetness from the dried fruits - and a bit of aftertaste of blueberry (the ingredients do include blueberry powder - a known antioxidant). We felt that the textures and tastes would lend themselves to two possible matches - either a dessert wine such as Port or Tawny Port, or a dry red wine such as Zinfandel or Shiraz. That is - if you take the name seriously and indulge along with wine.

So, along with our sample WineTime bar, we poured the following wines. Our observations are noted below. I will try not to pontificate too much about the wines - as the goal is to understand the qualities of the match between WinTime bar and wine.

Langmeil 2004 Valley Floor Shiraz: Contains very bright flavors, dried fruits. Decent combination with the WineTime bar but the bar brought out some sourness in the wine which was not apparent on the palate without the bar. The dark chocolate and blueberry flavors seemed to obstruct some of the fruity qualities in the wine.

Sineann 2008 Old Vine Zinfandel: The dark fruit and peppered spice actually seemed to increase the apparent sweetness of the dried fruit in the bar. We enjoy trying food and wine in various orders...wine first, food second...then food first, wine second. In this case, the pairing works much better with the wine first - bar second. The wine seems to flatten out due to the sweet dates if you have the bar first, then wine.

Biale 2007 Petite Sirah Desert Wine:   Deep, dark flavors. Rich, unctuous coating in the mouth.  Sweet, well integrated with the 20.5% alcohol. Dark cherry and black fruits. The sweetness holds up against the dried dates. Very nice match. We anticipate that a Zinfandel Port or Late Harvest Zinfandel would be a great match.

Penfolds Grandfather Tawny Port: Well, first of all, the wine received a couple of 'wows'...coats the palate - sweet, nutty, plums and other purple and black fruits incredibly well integrated with the alcohol (19.5%). A masterful match between the dried fruit, nuts, and dark chocolate from the WineTime bar. The two seem to complement each other.

The Verdict

The truth is, we tried what we 'like' and those which we felt had a good chance of success. We understand that not every household has a bottle of Penfolds Grandfather Tawny Port in their wine collection. We recommend that you try what you like to drink and experiment. However, we believe that your best options if you want to enjoy these bars with wine - stick with low tannin wines with very forward fruit profiles such as Zinfandel, Merlot, Carmenere, Malbec - and just about any red desert wine. Ask your wine store for wines that have very forward fruit.

In general, we really like the bars (in fact I ordered a box). We feel that in general that we will enjoy them by themselves as a snack. And - if we drink anything with them, will probably stick with fruit juices that will enhance the bar versus compete (e.g. a Cola).

If you are interested, you can order directly from: PocketWineAssistant.com. Use promo code "PWA" to receive a special discount. More information is available at: WineTimeBars.com.

Marshall Goldman is an independent wine & food blogger, partner in the highly acclaimed "Wine Market Assistant" and the recently released "Pocket Wine Assistant", and is also a blog contributor on VinVillage.com.