By: Megan Bronson
Special to The Collegian

Wish you’d been the cool kid at your Easter table? You should have brought the perfect wine to dinner. Speaking of dinner, let’s not kid ourselves — you’re gorging yourself on the universal sweets that plague our springtime, but disappear the moment you actually crave one, right?

I’m talking about Cadbury eggs, the infamous Peeps and the almighty solid chocolate bunny. While it might seem like a daunting task to pair wine with glorious candy, your alma mater has got you covered.

Treating these delicacies like a three-course meal, you want to start with your pile of Peeps. Light, fluffy and sweet — this is your go-to appetizer. To pair a wine with this delicate candy, look for a white wine with low acidity and heavy pear or peach notes.

A perfect example of this would be Fresno State’s own Abstract blend. It is a blend of Viognier and Semillon varieties. The aromatic Viognier makes the sugar on the Peeps melt in your mouth, while the slight acidity of the Semillon breaks down and dissolves the marshmallow, leaving you drooling for more.

Moving on to something a little more substantial, we move next to the rich Cadbury egg. With a chocolate exterior and an unidentifiable creamy interior, this candy deserves a red wine. Nothing too heavy, but with a light fruit and a medium to high acidity to break down all that high fructose corn syrup you’ve been ingesting.

For this, choose Fresno State’s Barbera. This traditional Italian grape offers light plum notes and enough acidity to break down that questionable yellow center of the egg. The real reason you want this wine is for the cherry notes that pair elegantly with the chocolate exterior, turning the odd candy into divinity.

Finally, the chocolate bunny arrives.

Assuming that the Easter bunny blessed you with a solid pound of shiny chocolate, you need a dark red wine. To pair with chocolate, you want a wine with a little more oomph. Look for something with bright, berries like blackberry or cherry, and a nice little spiciness to bring the fruit and chocolate together.

Look no further than Fresno State’s own Zinfandel. This supple wine has wonderful blackberry and black pepper characters to it. It combines the best of both worlds into a velvety mess in your mouth.

All of these wines can be found at the Rue and Gwen Gibson Farmers Market located at the corner of Chestnut and Chardonnay avenues.