National Ice Cream Month

With July being National Ice Cream Month, the pressure’s on to answer a fundamental question: what wine is best with ice cream? Being something of a traditionalist, I’m going with vanilla ice cream and PX Sherry, one of the gastronomic gems of Spain.  But that was before I heard of Golden Opulence, a $1000 (that’s not a typo) sundae now being served at the New York ice cream shop Serendipity 3. Golden Opulence consists of 3 scoops (imagine!) of Tahitian vanilla ice cream infused with Madagascan vanilla beans, and covered in 23K edible gold (ok that’s impressive), placed in a Baccarat crystal goblet (of course it is) and drizzled with Tuscan chocolate from Amedei (the Amedei Chuao chocolate is said to be from beans grown off the coast of Venezuela but we’re down on Venezuela thanks). There’s also some accompanying Parisian candied fruit, Swiss chocolate truffles, and a gold-plated sugar orchid (which doesn’t sound that tasty).  A tiny bowl of Grande Passion caviar—a dessert caviar sweetened with passion fruit and Armagnac (finally some wine!)—is on the side. I think you get to keep the 18K gold spoon that the sundae is served with. Ok wine friends, what would you drink with this?