Amedei Cioccolato Al Latte con Nocciole, Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts Bar
$10.00 for 100g. New version is $7.50 for 50g.

Unfortunately, Amedei has just changed over the format of its bars, but I had the luck of finding the old version in the store. It’s a much better deal, coming in at 100g for about $10, whereas the new one is 50g for $7.50 (i.e. the new format is just a de facto price boost). Moreover, the 100g bars come in colorful, sturdy boxes, which are much plainer but are also much more fitting for a chocolate bar.

The bar itself, too, is beautiful. Most of the hazelnut chunks were so small and so perfectly integrated that they almost didn’t show through the top of the bar. And that’s probably the nicest part—those nuts don’t jut out whatsoever, even though this bar is literally overflowing with them, as you’ll notice by the first snap of the bar.

Not surprisingly, the hazelnut doesn’t play second fiddle here. In every bite, you get an intensely smooth and creamy, yet very crunchy texture. What surprises me is really how soft that crunch is, though. Since the hazelnut chunks are so so small, they almost don’t interfere with the smoothness of the chocolate. Even though you do have to munch down on the bar, it’s easy to taste just how easily the chocolate melts, with no hesitation at all. Even better, you can snap the chocolate apart into perfect squares every single time, even with all the chunks of nut hardening the bar—that feature alone goes to show you Amedei’s technical mastery.

As for the taste, this bar just can’t be beaten for a flavored milk chocolate bar. Not only are the ingredients in themselves excellent, but they synergize very well. What stands out most is simply the quality of the Italian hazelnuts. They’re roasted, flavorful, and elegant. Even more importantly, they’re consistent. Amedei only incorporates the freshest, best hazelnuts from the Piedmont (Langhe Hazelnuts), so that the taste is always uniform.

The chocolate itself is rich and relatively sweet, but not overly so for a 32%. It has a very caramel-like quality to it, both in terms of melt and taste. That balance is only amplified by the fusion of the hazelnut, as the smoky nuttiness helps to balance out the sweetness of the milk chocolate further, while the richness of the chocolate softens the intensity of the hazelnut. The hazelnut flavor tends to hit you first, eventually giving way to the chocolate. While the bar can get just a bit too sweet after the chocolate starts to really hit you on the palate, this is about as close as you can realistically get to true balance.

Finally, the length of the chocolate itself isn’t much to note, since the hazelnuts shorten it incredibly. Still, the aftertaste is very refreshing, as the roasted, smoky hazelnuts tend to stick to and clean the palate. They’re very aromatic as well.

Overall, the Amedei Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts Bar is easily my favorite flavored milk chocolate bar and one I’d easily recommend, even at the incredible price. You will almost never find hazelnuts this good in a chocolate bar.

Presentation: 4.9/5.0. The bar’s seamless integration of the hazelnuts is astounding.
Melt: 4.5/5.0
Length: 3.0/5.0 (but not quite as important for a flavored milk chocolate)
Taste: 4.8/5.0
Flavor: 4.8+/5.0
Value: 4.5/5.0.
Verdict: 4.7/5.0. Extremely, almost sinfully, edible.

Amedei Cioccolato Al Latte Bianco Con Pistacchi, i.e. White Chocolate with Pistachio Bar
$7.50 for 50g

I’ve gone on the record as hating the new Amedei packaging, but I’ve started to have a change of heart, and this bar really drives in the point. The box invites you with a tasteful painting of a pistachio tree, with a description of the bar and of Amedei’s chocolate production on the inside. And the bar itself is simply beautiful. There are so many pistachio chunks included that the bar has taken on a beautiful, pale green color. And yet Amedei has somehow managed to integrate them so perfectly that there is not even one bump on the bar, as not even one pistachio juts out.

As for the taste, you’ll literally be blown away by just how balanced and easy to eat this bar is. The pistachios, being such a heavy influence, almost completely counteract the traditional overpowering white chocolate sweetness. In turn, this bar is never cloying. In fact, I ate the whole thing in one sitting, and never did I become overwhelmed by the sweetness. The pistachios also add a slightly tangy, slightly roasted flavor that blends very nicely, adding some complexity to the otherwise very simple white chocolate. You can tell the quality of these nuts just by their taste—Amedei has selected only the best from Italy, and the quality is consistently excellent throughout the bar.

As with any white chocolate, the bar melts nearly immediately, leaving a very light, soft, very milky residue, lighter than what I’d expect but still very flavorful and creamy. At the same time, the pistachios add a fantastically crunchy texture that nevertheless doesn’t really interrupt the delicious smoothness of the white chocolate, since the chunks are so small. This bar is thus perfect for both munching down and slowly savoring in the mouth, though I have to say there’s nothing quite like getting the full force of the nuts with a big bite.

There are very few complaints about a bar such as this, which elevates the meaning of white chocolate. It’s not going to have any length or an astounding amount of complexity, but for a simple, white chocolate rush with an incredibly flavorful ingredient, turn no further than this bar. The one complaint I can toss is simply the price. This is easily the most expensive white chocolate on the market, and while it’s the best, I don’t know if I’d pay $7.50 for 50g of something that doesn’t even have actual cocoa in it.

Still, the Amedei White Chocolate with Pistachio Bar is an incredible display of just how delicious, balanced, and elegant white chocolate can be.

Presentation: 4.8/5.0
Melt: 4.5/5.0
Length: Very little. Not really relevant for white chocolate.
Taste: 4.6/5.0
Flavor: 4.7/5.0
Value: 3.0/5.0.
Verdict: 4.3/5.0. 4.6+ when discounting value.

Amedei Porcelana Bar

Like I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of Amedei’s new packaging—50g bars in odd, cardboard-like paper boxes—but it’s starting to grow on me, especially because the Porcelana Bar’s packaging boasts a rainbow of colors and some tasteful representations of cocoa pods along the whole front. Once you open the bar, you notice the same semi-austere, clean look, with the small squares inscribed with “Amedei.” There are minor imperfections—diminutive speckles of discoloring (chocolate bloom), for example—but it fares better than my Chuao did.

The first thing you notice once you open it is the aroma. Strong and slightly fruity, it just blasts towards you out of the package, though it doesn’t last incredibly long.

The bar itself is extremely flavorful. Whereas the Chuao is soft and delicate, with very subtle flavors, the Porcelana actually has some bold, pronounced undertones, even though it too retains the same delicateness. As soon as I put it into my mouth, I picked up a lot of acidity and plenty of earthier, nuttier tones: toasted almonds, coffee, and smoke. That soon gave way to just a bit of sourness, like a sour cherry or ripe berry, and started to move towards a bittersweet caramel infused with some mint. There’s also a rather pronounced sweetness running throughout, both from the sugar of the bar and from a subtle licorice undertone in the cocoa. And the flavors come together to truly leave a strong roasted/toasted impression on the palate, with an aftertaste that lasts just as long, if not longer, than the Chuao. Regardless, it’s much more intense than that bar, as the Porcelana feels much thicker, leaving a slightly gritty, sticky residue in the corners of the mouth. Needless to say, it’s deliciously round.

The melt is the one area where I can honestly say this bar takes a backseat to the Chuao, though not by much. It’s just a bit slow, as the chocolate takes a bit of time to lose its hardness. As I suggested above, it’s also on the thicker, richer side, so it’s not as elegant as you might expect at first.

Still, this is easily the most delicious dark chocolate bar I’ve tasted to date. It is, of course, not perfect, but it is mouth-puckeringly good in the areas which matter most: complexity, length, and melt. It might be hard to justify spending $12 or so for 50g—a whole 4x more expensive than most gourmet chocolates—but it just doesn’t get any better.

And if you’re wondering, YES, the Amedei Porcelana Bar does beat the Chuao in my book, but that’s only because I’m not a very delicate person myself and prefer bolder flavors. In any case, the Porcelana Bar is an unforgettable experience for any dark chocolate lover.

Presentation: 3.5/5.0. More like a 4.8 without the chocolate bloom.
Taste: 4.9/5.0
Length: 4.8/5.0
Melt: 4.4/5.0
Value: 4.0/5.0
Verdict: 4.4/5.0. 4.8/5.0 if you discount value and presentation.

Amedei “9″ Bar
75% Dark Chocolate, Blend of cocoa beans from 9 different plantations
About $10-$12 for 50g

The presentation of the Amedei 9 Bar is the same as nearly all the other Amedei bars, so I’ll refer you to the Amedei Porcelana review. Again, this chocolate has small blots of discoloring as a result of minor melting during the spring, probably during transportation.

The taste here is quite intense. I think Amedei really nails it on the box when it says the chocolate exudes the taste of toasted almonds—this is easily one of the smokiest darks I can remember eating. I’d add some other nuts in there too, though, including roasted hazelnuts and just a bit of walnut. That nut flavor lasts throughout the bar, dominating all the flavors. In that sense, this bar isn’t terribly complex, especially in comparison to Amedei’s other bars. Even so, there’s a bit of acidity, some butter, a bit of milkiness, and some nice citrusy and/or sweet fruits on the palate. I especially tasted some grape and lemon midway through the bar. Unfortunately, they’re very subtle, and the bar will feel one-dimensional at times.

As for texture, this bar has the same fantastic snap of the Amedei Chuao and Porcelana bars, along with one of the nicest, easiest melts for a bar with 75% cocoa. However, because it does have more cocoa in it than those bars, it is just a bit harder and slower on the melt, to the point that the bar can feel like it’s stagnating or pausing in the mouth. In turn, you really have to try to melt it down by constantly moving it around. On the more positive side, the bar is extremely round and quite long, leaving a smoky, slightly salty, and rather bitter aftertaste that lasts for at least 10 minutes. It’s not extremely strong, but it’s still very nice.

As a final note, I’d say the Amedei 9 Bar is probably the worst value of Amedei’s main dark bars. While it’s undeniably a great blend, it sells for nearly the same price as the Chuao and the Porcelana, give or take $2 or $3. It is, however, not quite as flavorful, nor are the beans as rare as those in the other bars, even if they come from 9 different plantations. In that sense, you’re paying about the same price for a bar made of lower quality (but still incredible) cocoa as you would for a bar with some of the rarest cocoa in the world. Still, the Amedei 9 Bar is a great treat.

Presentation: 3.0/5.0. 4.2 without the discoloring.
Taste: 4.2/5.0
Melt: 4.0/5.0
Length: 4.2/5.0
Value: 2.0/5.0. Amedei makes far better bars for the price.
Verdict: 3.4/5.0 . 4.1 if value is excluded.

Producer Notes: “Discover the vinous flavor and the fruity, spicy, dense and powerful notes that this cocoa has drawn from a soil made to breed chocolate: naturally dark, rich, and extraordinarily inviting. This Spanish cocoa, born from the encounter between a Forastero and a Criollo, is exceptionally long on the palate.”

The Maglio Santo Domingo bar looks very nice. At first, I wasn’t too impressed with the boring, though colorful, thick paper box, nor with the chocolate’s large blocky format—it comes in nine huge, thick blocks. And it was especially disappointing to open up the bar to discover that two whole blocks had already chipped off while in the wrapper. But the bar is incredibly clean, with a level of jet black polish you normally don’t see. Even the insides are completely clean, with no discoloration or chocolate bloom whatsoever. The aroma—of mud and coffee—is light, however.

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Maglio’s Santo Domingo bar is also a very complex, interesting piece of chocolate, with a flavor profile literally unlike anything I’ve ever tried before. The chocolate is bold, with a lot of earthy but very bright flavors. Expect a very smooth, natural flavor up-front, like nuts and soil mixed with some cinnamon and gingerbread. That then gives way to an equally natural, subdued wildness, like banana-infused milk, egg yolk with herbs and spice (especially cinnamon), and other similar combinations of the creamy and rich with much lighter, fruity and herby ingredients. The Santo Domingo bar ends with a bit of a cocoa kick, similar to a cup of morning coffee. The chocolate is oddly satisfying, not simply for the contrast, but just as much for how easily two opposing sides of the flavor spectrum can be fused with each other. This bar, while flavorful, nevertheless always feels like it’s in perfect balance. It could have certainly used some bolder flavors in my opinion, but it’s hard not to respect such grace.

One caveat to note: This bar does use soy lecithin, which gives it its incredible, yolky richness, but here the lecithin thankfully doesn’t translate to much waxiness (at least not so much as to detract from the fantastic cocoa quality). This chocolate very easily and naturally coats the entire mouth—and I mean every spot it touches—with a delightful, subtly fruity, slightly viscous cocoa gel. It still manages to never cling to the palate, however. Not only is the finish clean, but it leaves an aromatic, slight coffee smokiness on the palate, mixed with just a bit of black fruit. That aftertaste is rather long, lasting for about 10 minutes.

My first experience with Maglio, then, is an easy success. The Santo Domingo manages to combine intense, unique flavor seamlessly and gracefully.

Scores

Presentation: 4.0/5.0. 4.5 without the chipped off pieces.
Taste:  4.3+/5.0
Melt: 4.1/5.0-4.2/5.0
Length: 4.2/5.0
Value: 4.2+/5.0
Verdict: 4.2+/5.0

I finally get a crack at what is perhaps the most famous, renowned chocolate in existence: Amedei’s Chuao Bar. Nearly every year since the inception of London’s annual world chocolate championship, this bar has come in first place as the best dark chocolate bar on the market. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t come cheap either. You might notice the price is about four times the price of a typical gourmet chocolate and about 25x the price of a Hershey’s. Can any dark chocolate bar really be that good? I just had to find out for myself.

The Amedei Chuao Bar comes in somewhat of an odd form—a 50g bar wrapped up in an odd cardboard-like semi-cylindrical box that seems flimsy at best. Amedei used to sell its chocolates in much sturdier, rectangular boxes, and I have to say I’m not too fond of this new format, which feels very gimmicky. Nor was I very pleased with the paper wrapper covering the actual chocolate, as it was double wrapped with plastic on the inside, making it difficult to open properly.  I do like, though, that the box comes complete with a poetic eulogy of chocolate, as well as an explanation of the Chuao bean and of exactly what makes Amedei chocolate so unique (thankfully with a warning against using emulsifiers and additives).

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The chocolate itself looks a lot nicer, though, with an almost austere look to it. It’s divided into very simple squares with a simple design (“Amedei” written all over), but just by the look you can tell its excellence.

I wasn’t too happy with the chocolate’s color—there had been some discoloration (technically called “chocolate bloom”) at the very edges of the bar, probably due to lack of proper storage during shipping. It wasn’t much, but just enough to ruin an almost flawless look.

However, as soon as I cracked a piece off and put it into my mouth, all those negative impressions went away. First off, while this chocolate is 70%, it breaks off with almost no hesitation into perfect squares every single time—a testament to just how masterfully the bar is crafted. It surprisingly holds its form very well, too, without melting at all until you put it into your mouth. In fact, my fingers had almost no chocolate stains even after I ate a whole bar—that’s master technique, plain and simple. But once you do pop a piece in your mouth, it becomes infinitely creamy, melting slowly but evenly. It is, in fact, almost milky or silky at times. It is, moreover, incredibly round, becoming an almost toffee-like ooze in the mouth that leaves a thick residue all over, so that you can really savor it in every corner of the mouth.

The taste, too, is beyond comparison. It starts out slow, with very earthy notes—a heavy cocoa infused with mostly coffee, soil, and some toffee. As you savor it further, you pick up plums and some sour and sweet red fruits, especially sour cherries and raspberries. You finish off with a very subtle, long, bitter smokiness—an aftertaste that is felt on the back of the palate or in the throat about 10 minutes.

To be fair, it’s not astoundingly complex, nor are the flavors very bold. But that’s not the strength of this bar. Instead, what you get is perhaps the most delicate dark chocolate imaginable. I like my dark chocolate strong, but it’s undeniable that this is easily the most edible 70% bar I’ve ever tasted.

The one area where the Amedei Chuao Bar really suffers—and it has nothing to do with quality—is in the value department. For about double the price of most gourmet chocolate bars, Amedei gives you half of a normal bar—i.e. this chocolate is 4x more expensive than most gourmet chocolate. I understand that the Chuao is a one-of-a-kind bean, but is it 4x better than most other beans?

Presentation: 3.5/5.0. Bonus points for having the best snap of any chocolate I’ve ever tasted.
Melt: 5.0/5.0
Length: 4.7/5.0
Taste: 4.7/ 5.0
Value: 3.5/5.0
Verdict: 4.4/5.0. 4.7/5.0 if you discount presentation and value

Presentation is okay. Box isn’t much, and the chocolate is in a silver wrapper. Both seem kind of cheap. The chocolate itself looks nice, though. It is divided into the traditional square pieces, but each chocolate square is topped with a concave mound containing the filling, with the Venchi signature (a V) written on each square.

The chocolate is crunchy, with strong hazelnut tones. There is some caramel, but for some reason it seems to me more like a gritty gianduja taste. The crunch of the caramelized rice is nice, but the flavor is off-putting. It’s especially cloying on the 1^st taste, but the flavor moderates as it is savored in the mouth. Still, the chocolate is too sweet, especially with the combination of the milky sweetness with the caramel of the filling. Kind of tastes like a high-quality candy bar (that’s not a compliment, especially for something so expensive). It has no length and is rather monotonous. Far too expensive for a candy bar.

The presentation is very simple—just a normal box, with a very well-tempered, fine-looking chocolate. It has great texture and is very firm, but doesn’t just fall apart or melt for no reason, likem any whites. It actually seems solid. But it still has a fantastic, creaminess/melt in mouth. It’s not too sweet, which is great. It’s not cloying at all. The one downside is that it has a weak first impression. It’s not sweet enough at first, and very few overtones—just a solid, straightforward bar. But you can appreciate its smoothness, nuttiness, and quality over the long term. This is an 8.0 for me, but then again I’m not a lover of whites (those who are may enjoy this even more). It’s just a great traditional white choc, no strings attached.

Presentation: 2.5/5.0
Taste: 3.5/5.0
Melt: 3.5/5.0
Value: 1.5/5.0. $8 is just way too expensive, especially for this white chocolate.
Overall Score: 2.8/5.0