As everybody knows, all you need to be happy is wine or chocolate. Sadly, putting them together is all too often a culinary disaster.

The qualities that make chocolate such a delight when eaten on its own make it one of the trickiest foods to match with wine. The degree of each will differ by the bar, but all chocolate has a certain mouth-coating thickness of texture, an essential streak of bitterness, some tannins and some sweetness that, put together with most wines, can make for powerfully discordant experiences.

You could, of course, avoid wine as chocolate partner entirely. The coffee, mocha and dark maltiness of porter and stout, including the richly indulgent versions made with chocolate, have a like-with-like appeal. I’ve also grown dangerously fond of a pairing recommended by my Guardian wine-writing colleague Fiona Beckett: the bittersweet, herb-infused aromatised Italian red wine drink barolo chinato with very dark, almost savoury high-cocoa chocolate.

But it is possible to find wine that harmonises perfectly with your Easter eggs. The first thing to remember is that dry wines just do not work with chocolate. As with any food, if the wine is drier than the chocolate it’s going to make it taste excessively bitter.

Sugar content is as variable in chocolate as it is in wine, and the drier the chocolate the less powerfully sweet the wine needs to be. The same is true of bitterness and tannins: the darker and higher in cocoa the chocolate (so generally more bitter), the more powerful, rich and full-bodied the wine needs to be.

Feed all that through a Willy Wonka-ish machine and you’d have the following read-out. For white chocolate: try lighter-bodied sweet whites, such as the fortified muscats of southern France (muscat de Beaumes de Venise or muscat de St Jean de Minervois).

With low-cocoa milk chocolate, opt for richer, more robust sweet whites such as tokaji and sauternes, Tuscan dried-grape wine vin santo, and (if there’s dried fruit and nuts in the mix) tawny port and the syrupy PX sherry.

At the high-cocoa end of the spectrum, the complementary tannin and bitter-sweetness of sweet fortified reds, such as late bottled vintage port and southern France’s banyuls and maury, or (if the chocolate’s very low in sugar) another great Italian, dried (red) grape amarone, all prove that two great pleasures can indeed become one.

Six drinks to pair with chocolate

Best buy: Royal Tokaji Blue Label 5 Puttonyos, Tokaj, Hungary 2013 (£12.99, 25cl, Waitrose; £26, 50cl, laithwaites.co.uk)
The great Hungarian wine is made at various degrees of sweetness, indicated in units of “puttonyos”. Five is certainly sweet enough for darker milk chocolate, with the tangy richness and sumptuous texture of this wine a stunning foil.

Quinta do Noval Late Bottled Vintage Port 2012 (from £20.95, ocado.com; oddbins.com)
There’s a brooding intensity to the deep, black forest gateau-like flavours, and just the right level of polished grip to the tannins in this magnificent example of late-bottled vintage port that is a perfect foil for dark chocolate both with and without dried fruit.

Thornbridge Brewery Coca Wonderland Porter (from £2.29, Waitrose, beersofeurope.co.uk; honestbrew.co.uk)
A brilliantly indulgent beer from the excellent Peak District brewery Thornbridge, this 6.8% abv porter uses cocoa beans in the maturation process which bring a powerful coffee-and-mocha tang and richness that fits seamlessly alongside high-cocoa chocolate.

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (from £3.40, Twelve Green Bottles, Liquoronline.co.uk, drinksupermarket.com)
A cult beer from a cult craft brewer, this Russian imperial stout gets its deep, dark chocolate character from a blend of six malts and three mashes. At 10%, it’s powerful, chewy, dense but drinkable with or without a square of equally dark chocolate.

Contero Brachetto d’Acqui Piedmont, Italy 2016 (from £15.50, justincases.co.uk; hailshamcellars.com; buonvino.co.uk)
A wonderful red Italian fizz speciality that, like its white equivalent, moscato d’Asti, has a gentle foamy sweetness and light alcohol, but which is vividly cherry-berry-fruited with a subtle twist of bitterness for matching white and milk chocolate.

Château de Jau Banyuls Rimage Les Clos des Paulilles, Banyuls, Roussillon, France 2015 (from £12.75, 50cl, josephbarneswines.com; buonvino.co.uk; prohibitionwines.com)
The southern French answer to port, this fortified grenache is slightly lower in alcohol (17% versus 20% abv) but with an explosive brambly berry and dark chocolate character and easy, sweet succulence that was born for chocolat noir.