It may be common knowledge that red wines should be paired with red meat and white wines go hand in hand with fish, but the art of coupling off wines and chocolate is more obscure.

A seminar about pairing the two delicacies is just one part of ClearWater Conservancy's annual "For the Love of Art and Chocolate" party, which takes place from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd.

Besides the wine and chocolate seminar, for which there is an additional fee on top of the $25 admission, the event will also feature live jazz, fine art and other desserts.

"For the Love of Art & Chocolate" is the main fundraiser for the ClearWater Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental conservation organization that receives blocks of land in State College and the Centre County area to conserve.

Jennifer Shuey, executive director of ClearWater, said she expects to see about 500 people attend the main event this year.

Amber Gladys, public relations intern for ClearWater, said the event raised $18,000 last year.

"The silent art auction is where most of the profit is drawn in from, plus the ticket sales and corporate sponsors," Gladys said.

The art auction will have nature-inspired pieces from 55 local artists and will include everything from jewelry, paintings, wood carvings, sculptures and rugs.

"We will be raffling off an original piece by Jennifer Kane at the event," Shuey said. "It's an oil painting of the Musser Gap property that she created specifically for us."

Attendees can enjoy entertainment by local jazz band Jazza-Ma-Phone and be treated to homemade chocolate confections from local restaurants, bakeries and shops.

"People can enjoy dessert, wine and coffee as they go around and look at or bid on all of the art," Gladys said. "There are just desserts, and the main focus is chocolate."

Gladys said a long list of local businesses donated desserts, including Café 210 West, 210 W. College Ave., The Gingerbread Man, 130 Heister St., Chocolate Madness, 224 E. Calder Way, and the Tavern, 220 E. College Ave.

Representatives from The Hershey Company and Mount Nittany Vineyard and Winery will host the seminar about wine and chocolate.

"Just [like] how certain wines go with certain cheeses or meats, there's an art to pairing wine and chocolate," Gladys said.

Dan Azzara, vice president of global research and development at The Hershey Co., said the popularity of dark chocolate has increased in the last few years because of underlying health benefits of their antioxidants.

"As we [Hershey] saw this change in popularity, we thought one of the fun things we could do is pair dark chocolate with wines," he said.

Pairing selections are based on the cacao levels in the chocolate.

"Cacao is the amount of material from the cocoa bean that's in the dark chocolate," Azzara said. "The higher percentage of cacao, the darker the chocolate, so you would have a full bodied, very sweet wine with it."

Azzara said the sweeter chocolates with lower cacao levels should be paired with lighter, semi-dry wines.

"Milk chocolate is very mild and has more sugar in it because there's less cacao, so you want to balance off the sweet chocolate with a drier wine, just like you want a sweeter, fruitier wine to balance out the bitter taste of dark chocolate."

The chocolate wine-pairing lesson is held for 60 guests during the silent auction.

"It's a fun lesson to show you what characteristics you're supposed to be looking for whether smelling wine or tasting chocolate to pair the two together," said Shuey.

The money raised from "For the Love of Art and Chocolate" will be used to help the conservancy continue its mission.

"The primary things ClearWater does are land conservation, water resource protection and environmental outreach in the community," Gladys said.

ClearWater's work protects the drinking water here for students and locals in State College.

"Water is something we take for granted -- we turn on our tap and don't think about the possibilities of pollutants," Shuey said. "If there are pollutants in the water system at Musser Gap of the Centre Region, it could be showing up in the drinking water in State College in two to three weeks."