Swipe Right for Love

Swipe Right For Love Hour

SM Sarah McConnell

AS Audio Sample

BL Brianna Lane

JR Jennifer Rosier

EM Elliot Majerczyk

AH Andrew Hodson

KL Kelley Libby

JL John Last

JE Joshua Erlich

00:00:00

[sounds effects from the game Candy Crush]

AS Candy Crush ñ sweet.

SM Around 270 million people play Candy Crush each month. It's a cellphone arcade game with bright colors and annoying sound effects. Hop on a bus or spend time in a waiting room, and odds are someone around you is playing Candy Crush or at least some other video game on their phone. For a younger generation, online dating apps have become a bit like Candy Crush - just another videogame.

AS When they're on Tinder or Bumble or a similar site, they're not doing it to find somebody or to meet somebody. They're doing it because they're bored, and they just want to swipe through some profiles.

SM From Virginia Humanities, this is With Good Reason. I'm Sarah McConnell. Today on the show, we're talking love - how to find it and how to keep it.

[Candy Crush sound effects fade out]

Online dating isn't new anymore, it's the norm. And while plenty of people have certainly become experts at crafting just the right profile, there's not a lot of actual research on dating apps. Enter Brianna Lane, she's a communications professor, Christopher Newport University, and she's been studying online dating. Brianna, what do you think online dating has changed about dating from the times when we didn't have Tinder and Bumble and Okay Cupid?

BL Dating now, it happens faster. It's almost an instant gratification that if I want to find somebody right now, I can go on Bumble or Tinder and I can find somebody for a date tonight. Or I can be more picky with an eHarmony or a Match.com kind of website and take my time to find what I'm really looking for. Whereas in my parents generation, without the Internet, without technology helping, you kind of were stuck with who's around - who's at the bar, who at church, who's at these town functions. And that's who you have to pick from in terms of finding a partner. But with online dating, the world is your oyster.

SM Thatís such a good point. And nowadays, you don't really need a pick-up line. Or maybe you do? Maybe you need to be really savvy and funny online and have just that right -

BL Yeah, you know, it's to - to go beyond the mutual match on Tinder, you do have to have some sort of funny, witty pickup line to get that second communication message. There is still this element of flirting online. You still have to be - and that, I mean, that's why some people say they're bad at online dating. It's because they don't know how to be funny or flirtatious or they're not sure how to construct their message the right way.

SM What advice do you have for people in creating their profiles? These days, it seems like everybody is upping their game and putting out incredible pictures and descriptions of themselves. What do you understand about how competitive it is?

BL Well, the problem, we could say, with online dating is that you can present yourself in any way that you want to. So if I wanted to go online, if I wanted to create an online dating profile where I am a supermodel that tours Europe every summer posing for fashion magazines, I can do that and I can Photoshop my photos to make it look like that's accurate. So we do have to be aware of - people can present themselves however they want to. The thing is, if you are looking for an actual offline face to face relationship, you do have to balance presenting yourself as attractive, but also realistic because you're eventually going to meet that person face-to-face. So if I did present myself like I'm, you know, 110 pound, 5 foot 10 supermodel, if I meet somebody face to face, they're going to know immediately, that's not true.

SM Do you think most people start out fudging it a little bit? Or do they start out sort of clumsily overly honest and they don't get any hits?

BL I think brand new online daters probably start out a little too honest and then they realize they're not getting a lot of attention. I can actually share a personal example, my best friend - she wanted to find a long-term partner and so she was online dating and getting a few dates here and there, but nothing was sticking. Nothing was what she was looking for. And so, her friends, her local friends told her, you need different photos. And so they put makeup on her, dressed her up and staged her in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, making salsa, even though it was staged. And the next date that she got is now her fiancÈ.

SM Food is everything, right?

BL That's part - yeah, absolutely. But that's just it. She - she presented herself in a way, with makeup and in these kind of staged photographs as if they were spontaneous, but they weren't normally her. She doesn't normally dress like that or wear makeup or do her hair. But that photo is what attracted her now fiancÈ. As a personal example, if I were to create my own profile, I would absolutely post a photo of me paddle boarding because that's something I enjoy doing. And I would want to show people - show potential partners I'm active and I like getting out on the water and I here's a photo of me to prove that I do that. Now, how often do I paddle board? Maybe three times a year. I'm not that active with it - I do love doing it, but I'm not that active. But I'm still gonna present it as if it's a bigger part of my life than maybe actually is.

SM So what are some other tips for how to put yourself out there without overdoing it?

BL You do need to consider what website you're actually using. Are you using what we call an official dating site like eHarmony, Match.com, those paid for kinds of Web sites? Or are you using Tinder, which has the reputation of being a quick hookup kind of site? So, first of all, decide what is the website that's most appropriate for me? And then present yourself in a way that is accurate with how that website portrays itself. So if you're on Tinder and you say I want a long term committed soulmate, that's not the appropriate channel for that. EHarmony or Match.com is better suited for that long-term commitment and search. Be honest about what you're looking for.

SM What do you notice from your own college classes? Do they engage in discussions about their successes and failures online?

BL You know, my students ñ what they actually have told me is that when they're on Tinder or Bumble or a similar site, they're not doing it to find somebody or to meet somebody. They're doing it because they're bored, and they just want to swipe through some profiles.

SM Right. So it's fun.

BL It's fun. They treat it like a game. And so they you know, when they're bored in between classes or maybe sometimes even during class, they're swiping through profiles. And the game is that they might actually right swipe or accept somebody and boom - mutual match. And that's kind of the win in the game. They have no intention of actually communicating with that match or meeting that person. They just want to see if they can get a mutual match.

SM So let's say that we want more than a one-night hookup, that we actually want to meet up and form some sort of relationship or hope for it. What are next steps? How long should we be talking back and forth before we actually meet?

BL Yeah, so there actually is some research out there on the timing, of how long should you stay online before you have that first date and meet them face-to-face? Interestingly enough, research shows there's kind of a perfect window of 17 to 23 days, as odd as that sounds, but like two to three weeks is kind of how long you should communicate online before actually meeting them face -to-face. The reason for this is that when you're communicating online, so just through email, through the - the functions of the dating website, I'm presenting myself in the most positive way, attractive way possible. And the person I'm talking to is presenting themselves in the most positive, attractive way possible. And then we have these limited cues in our in our email, right. In our emails or text messages, we are restricted in our non-verbal communication. And so we essentially fill in the holes, fill in the information that we don't have because we are lacking some nonverbal communication when it's just through email or texting,. Because of those positive impressions and filling in the cues of the lack of information that we have, it forms this heightened, super attractive Prince Charming effect - that this is now the most perfect person. This is my soulmate. This is my Prince Charming. And so the longer that we are online, the more we have the Prince Charming effect and the more likely we are to then experience disappointment when we meet them face-to-face because they're not Prince Charming.

SM But think about Sleepless in Seattle. They communicate forever.

[both laughing]

BL And that's - that's a possibility to. Some people prefer to stay online for various reasons, but they might not ever want to actually meet this person face-to-face. Some people don't have the goal of a face-to-face relationship. And so staying online the whole time, the entirety of the relationship, that could actually be their goal.

SM Can we fall in love as firmly, as truly, as quickly online as we do in person without any online communication?

BL So research actually shows that we can fall more strongly in love and more strongly committed and more a completely more attracted to a person online than we would in face-to-face relationships. So the relationship online can actually be more intense than a face-to-face relationship.

SM Does research say that more and more couples have now met online, as opposed to bumping into each other at a bar or at Workplace, or...

BL It - the number one way to meet somebody is still through mutual contacts. A friend of a friend, meeting at a friend's wedding, something like that. It's still the number one. But I would say online dating is number two.

SM Do you think the change from dating each other in person to an online form of introduction is delaying when we have courtship, actual courtship, long-term friendships, possibly marriage and kids?

BL Online dating is actually speeding up the courtship process. Whereas it might take months, years, especially years before an engagement, years after that, before I mean - it takes a long time face-to-face. Online dating is speeding up that process where people might meet somebody depending on the timing of when they meet face-to-face, they're engaged in five months and married in a year. And that's extremely common nowadays. So it is a common trend that younger generations are delaying marriage and delaying kids longer than - than other generations. They're delaying the marriage and delaying kids. But when they do, when they are ready for marriage, are ready for that long term relationship, they can find it, and form it, and solidify it a lot more quickly than it has happened in the past.

[music]

SM Well, Brianna Lane, thank you for talking with me on With Good Reason.

BL Thank you.

00:12:05

SM Brianna Lane is a professor of communications at Christopher Newport University. Coming up next, the four myths about sex. And a note to our listeners. This next segment discusses sex and might not be appropriate for younger ears.

[music fades out]

My next guest says she loves love. That's why Jennifer Rosier spent her entire career studying how to make love work better. Jenny is a professor of communication studies at James Madison University. Jenny, one of the things you teach and write about is the importance from the get-go between parents and babies of attachment. And by that you mean security. You also say that relates to whether we have a good sex life later on, or a good relationship. Take me to the beginning. I think I know what you mean by attachment. Don't pretty much all babies and parents have that bond?

JR No, actually, when babies are born, all of us have this like, really strong, innate desire to connect to other people. From birth, the second we, you know, come out of the womb, we want to connect to another human. And then based on the interactions that we have with those important humans in our life, typically our parents, we can develop these mental frameworks in our brains, which are based on patterns of behavior that start to - to like tell us that we are good. Other people are good. Relationships are good. Those mental frameworks that are based on those interactions that we have with our - mostly our parents cause us to view the world in a certain way. And hopefully it's positive, but sometimes it can be negative. And again, that's based on how our parents interact with us.

SM Really, all our anxiety and insecurity comes from our parents?

JR Not all of it, no way. Definitely not. But there is some kind of foundation that's built in the first three years of life. And if your parents build a really solid attachment foundation, it gives you a certain amount of resilience.

SM Let's assume that there are some children that are tragically unlucky and have horrible treatment, insecurity, attachment early on. Let's look instead right now at a vast swath of parents that are doing a pretty good job - a great job. What does insecurity look like within that realm of people? So if you're a pretty good parent, but you're missing out on some key things, what might you be doing that are creating not such great outcomes?

JR So, like, if you're talking about infants and maybe early toddlers, this manifests into the parents behaving in ways that are not consistent. So on Monday, baby is crying and mom has a lot of patience because, you know, she had some self-care time and she feels ready to tackle the day and she's caring for the baby every single time the baby cries. She might be baby wearing the whole day in one of those cute little wraps. And then on Tuesday, she's stressed out because of A, B and C, and baby is crying, and for some reason, baby can't stop crying, which happens to every baby. And it triggers something in mom that makes her less capable of responding in a sensitive way. If this pattern continues and it goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth - that can create a mental framework in the baby's brain that makes them question if people are trustworthy, makes them question if people will be there for them.

SM You've said that there are certain kinds of anxiety and fear and security that people might recognize in themselves and their loved ones. Can you go through those for me, to help me understand what each of this is, what it looks like and what it might mean for how we are and view others?

JR So we've talked about secure attachment. That is one category of attachment - adult attachment. There are also three categories of insecure attachment, and most people do not actually fit in one of these categories. Typically we have - are in one of these categories, but we have tendencies in the others. So one of them is called anxious-preoccupied. An anxious-preoccupied person views themselves negatively and views other people positively. So this is what this sounds like inside this person's head is. ìI'm not that great. I'm not really worthy of love. I don't know why anyone would really like me. I always mess up in relationships. But, you know, other people are really great. And I want to be in a relationship with one of those other people. And so I'm going to do everything I can to find someone who will like me. And I - I might start doing things that I don't normally do, like compliment a lot, self-disclose very quickly. Do grandiose gestures to get one of these awesome people to like me. And then once they like me, I will hook my claws in and move the relationship very quickly so that they can fall in love with me, before they figure out how not so great I amî. So that's one: anxious-preoccupied. Another attachment style - adult attachment style is fearful-avoidant. A fearful-avoidant person has a low opinion of themselves and a low opinion of other people. So what this sounds like - it's a lot of dissonance inside this person's head. So it's kind of confusing. So ìI'm not that great. I'm not lovable. No one would really want to be in a relationship with me. But guess what? Everyone else sucks, too. Everyone else is hard to trust. Everyone else is not that great. And so I want to be in a relationship because I feel like it's what people do. And it seems like it might help me. So I want to be in a relationship. But once I'm in it, I am sometimes consumed by this anxiety - because it's high anxiety and high avoidance - I am consumed by this anxiety of, are they going to like me? Are they going to judge me? I want to be close to them, but they're not trustworthy. And maybe this is a bad idea. I don't know. I might self-sabotage the relationshipî. Right. So sometimes these people might actively push their partner away, so that maybe they don't have to do the breaking up, the other person does it. The last insecure attachment style is called dismissive. And these people have a high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of others. So you might hear a dismissive person say things like ìTrue love isn't realî or ìI have really high standards and no one can ever meet my standardsî. They might out loud and talk to their friends and family about those standards. So they might say, ìI need to find someone who has A, B, C, D, E, F, Gî, all the way down to Z and maybe AA, BB, CC. They have a long list and they - they use that excuse as to why they're not in a serious, close, committed relationship. Nobody is good. Everybody is bad. I'm pretty great, which is an interesting shift. So they still have what seems to be high self-esteem, but it's kind of a mask. So they think they're really great and they'll see things like ìNo one can ever live up to my standardsî or ìI'm going to be a bachelor for lifeî or ìI don't need a man to be happyî. Things like that, that make other people look at them in a way that, ìoh, well, they're really confident in who they areî, when that's probably actually not the case. They have just shut down and decided not to let anyone in. Does that mean that it is dismissive? That that person is not in relationships? No, but when they get in relationships, they have a nice distance that they've predetermined depending on their amount of dismissiveness. You know, and for some people, this is amount of time they're in relationships. So they might be a serial monogamist that only goes for six months at a time.

SM We are such complex beings.

JR I know.

SM Relationships are unfathomably complex.

JR They are.

SM You advocate sexual coaching for grownups. Why do you think we need it?

JR So I worked on a project in - about 10 years ago, about creating a communication coaching program for couples who were in distress, and we taught them how to talk about sex with each other. We taught them things like, oh, well, if you want to talk about your sexual likes and dislikes, one of the things you can do is to sandwich a dislike between two likes. It softens the blow. You know, we taught them about how to be more comfortable talking about sex with their partner. And what I took away, that I think was like the most interesting part was - these were all heterosexual couples that I talk to lots of the wives. And what was fascinating to me was at the end when I asked them what was the - your most favorite, or the best part of the program? Hands down, the women said in the very beginning, you asked us to write down our five sexual likes, our five sexual dislikes and any sexual boundaries that we had, and no one had ever asked me that before. And I thought, what? Not only did they say that no one had ever asked them that before, but that many of them said they had never even thought about it before.

SM What do you think people find it so hard to be explicit about?

JR Well, when you want to improve your communication in any other situation, there are hundreds of experts that you can ask or watch or copy and model. Listening to a husband and wife talk about sex with each other is not a conversation that any of us are privy to. We don't grow up hearing our mom and dad's talk about their sexual likes and dislikes. We don't grow up hearing anybody on television talking to each other in this intimate way. So we don't have a lot of models to copy or to not copy.

SM So what are you doing with your four children?

JR [laughs] I have not had that conversation.

SM Right.

JR Yeah. So, I mean, we've talked to them about what sex is, but not about how to talk about it with a partner. So I think that one of the things that parents, if they want to go down this road, can do is to tell kids that they should - and not even about sex. Right. Like, maybe it will spill over - but tell kids that they should know the things that they like and the things that they don't like, and they should feel free to express those things to anyone that they want. And again, not talking specifically about sex, but, you know, when you're in a romantic relationship, when you get a boyfriend, when you get a girlfriend, you have every right to tell them that you like holding hands with them or you don't like holding hands with them. And you should say those things loud and proud to this person. And I - I hope that maybe that will spill over. And maybe when they're young adults, you can have more explicit conversations with them.

SM You have something that you call the four myths about sex that most of us have misunderstandings about. Share this with me.

JR So the first one is that people should automatically know how to sexually please their partners. Like, come on, how are you supposed to know? I mean, we barely are talked to about how to have sex growing up. And then you're an adult in a relationship and you're just supposed to know how to please someone who has completely different anatomy than you. That's ridiculous.

SM And everybody is so different. You think you've developed your technique and why isn't this successful with this person?

JR And so that's just - that's just crazy. The second one is that good sexual communication is instinctual. From what we've already said, I mean, that is just a ridiculous assumption to make. The third one is that younger people are more sexually adventurous, so they shouldn't have dissatisfaction issues. This is so not the case. Young people many times had the most dissatisfaction issues. People who are in happy, healthy marriages tend to be more sexually satisfied than people who are single. You know, when you're single, you have to find someone who's willing to do that with you and sometimes it's someone you don't know and it's awkward, and it's not always ridiculously satisfying. When you are married to someone or in a serious commitment, you can learn about each other's sexual likes and dislikes over time. Married couples tend to be - not always, but tend to be more sexually satisfied. And then the fourth one is that people should like the same sexual behaviors throughout their entire lives. And this one is also funny to me. You know, have you liked the same food your whole life? Have you liked the same music your whole life? Of course your sexual likes and dislikes are going to change. And so if you're with someone for 20 years, you have to keep checking in to see - hey, do you still like this? Do you still like that?

SM That's very inspirational to hear about the myths, to realize they make such sense. So what do you advise most of us do? We're coming into the Valentine holiday - a fraught holiday because expectations are so high, often dashed. But given the spirit of love in the air this week, what would you advise people about trying to get more emotionally intelligent about this?

JR I mean, I think a great place to start, because it was so successful in my study is to make a list of maybe not 10 or five, but maybe just three sexual likes and three sexual dislikes and share them with each other. Right, and then go practice them with each other, have some fun. That would be a great Valentine's Day.

[music]

SM Jennifer Rosier is a professor of communication studies at James Madison University and the author of Make Love, Not Scrapbooks and 9 Other Research-Based Love Tips. This is With Good Reason, we'll be right back.

[music fades]

00:28:00

SM Welcome back to With Good Reason. This is an encore presentation of an episode we originally aired in 2018.

[music] My funny Valentine, sweet comic valentineÖ

SM Valentine's Day is the time of year when you tell your loved ones or intended loved ones how you feel. And there's no better way to accompany your sentiments than with the traditional gifts of flowers, chocolate and wine. I'm Sarah McConnell, and today on With Good Reason. The Gifts of Love.

[music fades]

SM Later in the show, we'll meet a theoretical physicist who uses science to create chocolate treats. But first, wine and chocolate are natural partners. It's a traditional way to woo your beloved, sipping on a nice glass of chardonnay or merlot, while eating chocolates out of that heart shaped box. But which wine do best pair with the chocolate? Andrew Hodson is the owner of Veritas Vineyards, which produces 20,000 cases a year. He also teaches a course on all things wine at Piedmont Virginia Community College. With Good Reason, producer Elliot Majerczyk sat down with Andrew to talk about wine.

EM Andrew, how and why did you decide to become a winemaker? Now, I talked to you before the interview and I could detect a British accent.

AH Yes, that's correct.

EM And England is not known - and I hope I don't offend a lot of people for ñ

AH Right.

EM Fine wines, so what is the trajectory?

AH Well the trajectory there, is the fact that I came over to the United States way back in 1975 on an exchange fellowship. I was at that time practicing medicine. And in the year 2000, my wife and I both decided that we wanted to do something else. And we bought a little farm in Afton, Virginia, and we have planted a total of roughly 60 acres of vines and created what we call Veritas Winery.

EM Did you teach yourself the art of winemaking?

AH Yes, I did. I used as much as I could other people's expertise. You know, the definition of a smart person is one who surrounds themselves with smarter people. So I was able to do that with - both with vineyard and with wine making.

EM Did you have a bad year?

AH Oh, yes. Funny thing was, when we started in the first two years, 2000 to 2002, there was a horrendous drought. The drought was so bad that in the restaurants in Charlottesville, you they would serve you on plastic silverware and paper plates because they couldn't afford to wash them. And of course, if you're a grape grower or a wine grower, drought is a good thing. The first two years we made wine and they were hugely concentrated, and they were beautiful. And I thought, well, I really have chosen the right thing to do here. And then came 2003 and in 2003, it was twice the normal rainfall. We had a horrendous harvest. Nothing got ripe. So I was brought back to Earth quite rapidly.

EM So drought forces the grapes toÖ

AH Get riper and to get more sugar, more dehydrated increases the intensity of flavors of the wines.

EM Tough life leads it's to a sweet grape.

AH Yeah, unlike most agricultural people, we delight in drought.

EM Let's talk about wines in general. What do you look for in a wine beyond what you like in a wine?

AH Right. It's a good question actually, Elliott. And I look for a number of factors. The most important of which is balance. Wine must be balanced in the sense that no one flavor should overwhelm another flavor. I like to use the analogy of music and wine. Listening to good music, no one instrument should overpower the other instruments. And when you've got a balanced wine, everyone has got their own voice. And you can tell that the wine has got a good balance. That's one of the primary features in a good wine.

EM I'm not a connoisseur, so I look at the label and often if the label is in very bad taste. I often think the wine is in bad taste. And I read the little blurb on the back and if they have the word ëminerallyí on it, I put it back on the shelf. So how important is the label?

AH Well, the label is no more than a real sort of indicator as to the nature of the wine you're gonna buy. It's not in any way black and white. It helps you understand the more background knowledge you have, the more the label is helpful. They just are indicators, no more than an indicator. There are some German wines, for example, that you can't tell from the label, whether it's dry or sweet. And so they can be misleading. But for the most part, they help you in making a decision about buying the wine.

EM Another myth of wine or something I'd like to be cleared up, is a 40-dollar bottle of wine, always better than a 12- or 15-dollar bottle of wine?

AH That's not true. One can find 12-dollar bottles of wine that are as good, if not better, than a 40-dollar bottle of wine. And there are some 40-dollar bottles of wine that are sold at 40 dollars on the premise that because they cost forty dollars, they've got to be good. But there are many that are not so.

EM Let's talk about wine in 2018, this year with climate change in the fires in California. How has that affected the American wine market?

AH Well, the climate change is a huge phenomenon and is affecting wine growers throughout the world and not only in America. And there is no question that the planet is heating up. And there ñ itís been very clearly demonstrated in Bordeaux. It's been demonstrated in America. And as a result of the increase in warmth, the wines are going to be richer. Higher alcohol, higher sugars, regions that previously made concentrated sweet wines, then are too hot to make those wines.

EM Really?

AH Yes. And they're having to change what grapes are growing and adjust to the climate. The reason why the English can make sparkling wine is because of climate change. The climate has changed to the point that they can grow grapes in Britain, whereas before it was too far north, and they weren't able to ripen any grape.

EM We're going to have wines in Greenland soon, or in Iceland.

[both laugh]

EM The other thing in 2018 is if you open the newspapers, we're all told the economy is doing incredibly well. Stock markets are up and people have more disposable income.

AH That's great.

EM How is that affecting the wine industry?

AH It's a good thing. And there's been a recent - every year there is a symposium in California called the Unified Symposium, and all the information coming out of Unified is saying that the wine market is bullish and probably for that reason that there's more disposable income, discretionary income, whatever you like to call it - my only caution is that although the multi-national corporations are doing incredibly well and the stock markets are up, it doesn't necessarily trickle down to the common man.

EM Well, Valentine's Day is coming up. And so I have a question about Valentine's Day, which I'm sure a lot of people have. What do you recommend in terms of buying wine? If you have no idea what you're attended wine giftee-person likes?

AH I think the safest thing is to buy a wine that is sweet. By and large, the gifts of Valentine's are either flowers or chocolates. The most important factor in the tasting of the appreciation of chocolate is sweetness. When you pour a wine, you pour a sweeter wine than the dessert. So to be perfectly safe, if you're buying wine for your Valentine, it's best to buy a sweet wine.

EM Let's pair some wine and chocolate. And I just don't want to be the only person tasting along with you. So I've invited my colleague Kelley Libby - and Kelley, nobody told you this job was going to be so difficult when you started - that you were going to have to be drinking wine and chocolate. It's a really onerous part of work.

KL Awful.

EM Awful. So, Andrew, what do you have for us? What's the first?

AH Well, I bought three wines, the two sweet wines. One is a Madeira and the other one is a Port. Both, of course, from Portugal. The non-sweet wine is actually from Chile and the grape is called CarmÈnËre. And CarmÈnËre is a grape that at one point was confused with Merlot. And when the DNA testing was done on the vines, they were able to prove that what was thought to be Merlot from Chile was in fact, CarmÈnËre.

EM CarmÈnËre is a different type of grape?

AH Yes, it is a grape actually originated in Bordeaux, but because of low yields and because of many factors, it was not thought suitable for Chile. But in fact, it did get taken out to Chile and they did make wine with CarmÈnËre. And now it's become a wine of its own right. And a very lovely wine. And it does have very nice chocolaty flavors. And I think that today the other red wine - grape, rather, that is known for chocolate is Merlot. So either Merlot or CarmÈnËre are the best red wines to drink that are dry. And then on the other side, the best sweet wines to drink with chocolate and candies and things like that are the two sweet wines. I've brought the Madeira and the Port.

EM I see you've bought milk chocolate and bittersweet chocolate.

AH That's right.

EM What would you like to start with?

AH Well, I'd like to start with a bittersweet. The red wine has tannins which have a natural bitterness and a natural sort of roughness to them. So the bitter chocolate matches the bitter tannins in the red wine. So it makes a very good pairing. Iíd like to start with the dry wine first, only because once you've consumed sweet wine, your palate is contaminated. I don't mean contaminated - it's, your palate has been changed.

KL This may be the only wine and chocolate I'll get this Valentine's Day, so I'm thrilled for it.

EM Now I see that you're letting the red wine swish around.

AH Yes. It aromatizes the flavors.

EM Öand letting some oxygen. And so we take a bite of chocolate.

AH Yeah.

EM The proper protocol is to drink the wine.

AH Yes.

EM Have the chocolate, and then drink some more wine.

AH So we taste the wine and think about the wine.

[sipping sounds]

So you appreciate the wine. Then we take a little tiny bit of chocolate

[rustling chocolate wrapper]

and see how the chocolate influences the taste of the wine.

[chewing sounds]

EM Kelley, you were to receive this as a Valentine giftÖ

KL I'd be pleased.

[chuckeling]

AH And bitter chocolate goes best with the dry wine. The milk chocolate is a lot sweeter, will go better with either the Port or the Madeira.

KL And so you said it's a sweet wine. Does that mean it's an after-dinner wine?

AH It's not necessarily - some people will drink this as an aperitif. So they'll put ice and pour Madeira on ice cubes and drink it as an aperitif. By and large, it's a dessert wine. I drink Madeira ñ the only really time I drink Madeira is it Thanksgiving at the end of the meal and we're all sitting back by the fire, we enjoy a glass of Madeira.

EM So again, let's taste the wine.

AH Taste the wine.

[sighs]

AH Well, as they say, it's like butter!

EM It's very sweet.

KL Yeah, I think I like it more than Port.

AH Yeah, it's got it's got more caramel. That's sort of a caramelized toffee characteristics, which are really very charming and a degree of acidity. And the acidity balances the sweetness, because if you drink something that's just particularly sweet with no acid, you get this phenomenon of cloying. It's sickly sweet, right?

KL Yeah.

AH You add the acid - it brightens it, and the acid balances the sweetness. And this is what one finds in in a Madeira particularly.

KL Yeah. I can almost feel that acid sort of in my mouth. And I can see how without it I would feel a little thick.

EM Yeah itís a little in the aftertaste.

AH It's very pronounced

EM Here goes to chocolate. English Cadbury chocolate.

AH I only brought you the best.

KL And now we chase it with Madeira.

AH Madeira.

EM We may never get out of here.

[laughing]

EM You know, I noticed when weíre drinking this - it's the same phenomenon when you're eating a great meal. You suddenly get very silent, because you're just enjoying it.

AH Right.

EM I could spend a couple of days like this.

AH The port will be much more fruit driven, okay. So you'll get lots of dark fruit. You'll get things like raisins and plums and dried fruit - dried fruit. Whereas with the - with the Madeira, you get much more in the way of malt and toffee and sugar.

EM Yes. This is completely different than the Madeira.

AH Yes.

EM It does taste like, as you said, dry cherries, dried - dried plums.

AH Actually prunes, which is just the dried plum, of course.

EM I would say that this Port is not done much of a dessert wine. I could see drinking this with some food, a tart or some cookies.

AH Yeah. Yeah.

EM Not necessarily chocolate.

AH Chocolate brownies.

EM We won't go there. All right. Let's have some of this chocolate now.

[eating sounds]

Ah Well, based on our tasting ñ

EM That's my favorite.

AH Oh, is it? Okay. I was gonna say I was going to say Madeira was my favorite.

EM I find this a really nice balance between the sweet - the sweet of the chocolate and the a sort of, dried fruit.

AH Dried sultanas, all those lovely, dried fruits.

EM Well, Andrew, thank you so much, this is inspirational.

AH Oh, good. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

EM You've just made my valentines very easy, because now I know exactly what I'm going to get my wife.

AH Good.

EM I really have to think about it anymore.

KL Thank you, Andrew. It's was real treat.

AH You're very welcome. It was my pleasure.

[music]

EM And happy Valentine's Day, to us all.

AH To one and ñ to one and all.

SM Andrew Hudson is the owner of Veritas Vineyards and teaches a course on wine at Piedmont, Virginia Community College. Coming up, the scientific approach to making chocolate.

00:43:55

SM Joshua Erlich is a theoretical physicist at the College of William and Mary. He spends his days pondering dark matter. Along with the universe, the other dark matter he explores is the science of making chocolate. Associate producer John Last visited his chocolate making lab at William and Mary.

JL When I arrive at William and Maryís Small Hall, there's a lingering smell of chocolate in the air.

[music]

Josh Erlich is bustling around like an alchemist. He talks fast about chocolate because there's a lot to cover.

JA So there are two cardinal rules when working with chocolate. The first is don't rush, that's the rule that I broke.

JL Erlich is a theoretical physicist, but after happening upon a website a few years ago called ChocolateAlchemy.com, he became an artisan chocolatier. A man as expert in the mysteries of dark chocolate, as he is in the properties of dark matter.

JE So the basic ingredients in chocolate? Well, it's one part art, one part science, two parts love.

JL Chocolate Alchemy, the website, is the work of a former chemist named John Nancy. In a series of blog posts, he described how to take a process that is normally done with industrial equipment at a massive scale and do it in a home kitchen. Now, in front of me, Erlich has laid out all the steps in Nancy's process, beginning with the humble cocoa bean.

JE There is a combination of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. They are both contained inside cocoa beans and you can crack them open and inside you'll find cocoa nibs.

JL There are different kinds of beans from the common Forastero to the exotic white colored Porcelana, each provides a slightly different flavor. The cocoa butter is what's responsible for the structural qualities of chocolate. It's perfect melting-ness, its smooth texture. The solids, meanwhile, provide chocolate with its bitter, rich taste. Erlich roasts the nibs in the oven then takes them on to the first of several pieces of hardware.

LE Here we have a juicer Ö

LJ And this is no ordinary juicer.

[juicer turns on]

JE What this will do is take roasted cocoa nibs and convert them into a chocolate liquor.

JL They're flying everywhere! It smells - it smells really good. A little fruity almost.

JE A - a little fruity, that's right.

JL It's not alcohol that we're making. But a thick, brown paste. That's the base of all chocolates.

JE And let's not tell anyone what that looks like.

JL Oh, it's not the most appetizing looking stage of chocolate

JE Not at this stage, so that's why we don't feed this to people. It will also taste very bitter.

JL Once we have the paste, Erlich needs to mix in some sugar. But you won't be able to do this with a spoon.

JE The tongue is very sensitive. So if the particles get down below about 20 microns, then you have nice, smooth feeling chocolate.

JL 20 microns is less than a third the width of a human hair. So Erlich needs some serious equipment for grinding the sugar into the paste. In one of the great moments of human ingenuity, it was John Nancy who first discovered that an Indian food processor typically used for crushing lentils, could do the same job for mixing sugar into chocolate liquor. It looks like a food processor, but in place of the blades are two gigantic granite wheels.

JE The granite wheels just roll around and around, typically for 14 hours.

JL During this time, Erlich tells me, heat caused by friction cooks the raw cocoa liquor and helps cut the bitterness of the mix. At a certain point, Erlich like mixes in a grainy yellow substance. This is soy lecithin.

JE It makes the chocolate a little less fiscus and makes it easier to work with in the final stages, when it's poured into a mold.

JL At the end of this whole process, you have molten liquid chocolate. But Josh tells me actually that was the easy part.

JE And now is where the real science and the art come together.

[music]

JE So if you ever tried to melt a chocolate bar and then maybe pour into a mold and see if you could get a nice chocolate out of that, that's actually quite difficult. It won't work so well. And the reason is that there are six different crystal structures of the cocoa butter inside the chocolate.

JL Cocoa butter is made up of fat compounds called triglycerides that stack themselves into different shapes. After about 94 degrees, most of these compounds are just flowing about in an ooze. But as they cool, they can take on a number of different crystalline forms.

JE The goal is to make type five chocolate crystals. Type five chocolate will typically melt at about ninety-four degrees Fahrenheit, which is just below your body's temperature. But outside your hands will typically not be on the exterior 94 degrees. So you can hold a piece of chocolate for a good while if it's good chocolate and not have it melt. And the way to do that is science.

JL Erlich knows that type five crystals form between 80 and 94 degrees. Right now, the chocolate is sitting on a hot plate at a toasty 98 - too hot for type five crystals.

JE You could heat it up a little bit more because what we're going to do is make a seed crystal for the chocolate.

JL To make this so-called seed, Erlich takes the chocolate off of the heat and pours a little bit of it out on a cool marble surface, spreading it back and forth with a spatula. The idea is to cool the molten chocolate to the point that type five crystals begin to form. When he thinks it's reached about 80 degrees, he scoops it up and tosses it back in the pot with the rest of the cooling chocolate.

JE This is where it's as much artist science. The process is never the same twice.

JL The chocolate heís spread over the marble should have formed the type five crystals he's after. When it's put back in with the rest of the batch, those crystals will form bonds with the formless chocolate around it as it cools, turning the whole mixture into a shiny, perfectly formed crystalline structure. Erlich like pours it into a mold to set and viola - that science. He gives me a piece of chocolate to try from a batch he made earlier with a touch of hazelnut.

[chewing noises]

JL Mmm, it's very good. And it tastes delicious. It's half sweet and smooth, even buttery. There's a hint of bitterness from the cocoa and a subtle round flavor from the hazelnut.

JE Yeah you know, I think chocolate - it's just a nice, sensual experience putting a small piece of chocolate on your tongue, letting it melt. There's just something very appealing about that.

[music]

SM Joshua Erlich is a professor of physics at William and Mary. This has been an encore presentation of an episode that originally aired in 2018. Major support for With Good Reason is provided by the law firm of McGuire Woods. And by the University of Virginia Health System, connecting doctors and patients through telemedicine to deliver high quality care throughout Virginia, the U.S. and the world. uvahealth.com. With Good Reason is produced in Charlottesville by Virginia Humanities. Our production team is Allison Quantz, Cass Adair, and Matt Darroch. Production help was provided by Georgianna Reid. Some of the music for this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. For the podcast, go to withgoodreasonradio.org. Iím Sarah McConnell, thanks for listening.