Use a pear that is firm when ripe, such as Bosc, Conference, Winter Nellis, or Anjou. As mentioned, I used an inexpensive fruity red wine. Merlot, pinot noir, zinfandel, or another wine will be good here. For those who don’t drink wine, there’s no swap out for it in this dessert I’m afraid.
You can find a few more details about cooking the pears at how to
poach pears.
There will be leftover wine syrup after making the tart, which you can use to brush over the tart before serving or drizzled over the tart and ice cream, if you choose to serve it that way. Additional leftover syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks and used to dribble over fresh orange slices with pomegranate seeds, to enliven a fruit salad, or even drizzled over yogurt.