Gourmet Chocolate

While I traveling through Europe, I discovered the world of gourmet chocolate bars. Like most Americans, I grew up on Hershey’s, Snickers, and other mass-produced, overly sweet candy bars. Unsurprisingly, I had kind of a negative view of chocolate—it wasn’t a high-quality good, just an excuse for a sugar rush. In Europe, however, chocolate producers took chocolate to a whole new level.  It was a gourmet quality good, and one could easily charge 5 to 10 euros for a bar if the bar’s quality were up to par. Thus, there are numerous artisanal producers of chocolate, who emphasize production of each chocolate bar by hand, without adding preservatives or emulsifiers like lecithin. This market for gourmet chocolate is, moreover, growing rapidly throughout the world.

A few terms and concepts should be clarified before I begin the reviews. The way quality is managed in gourmet chocolates is somewhat similar to that of wines. As noted, first, purity of ingredients is maintained, and typically chocolates will only contain the cocoa, sugar, cocoa butter, and/or milk. The main difference in chocolates, though, comes from the quality of cocoa beans selected. There are only a few areas of the world that can grow good-quality cocoa beans, typically those centered around the equator, like Ecuador and Venezuela. However, the differing altitudes and climates, even among these countries can produce different flavors in the cocoa beans, just as is the case with different grapes used in wine production. Thus, in their best chocolates, artisanal chocolate producers tend to concentrate on specific regions or countries, only using the beans from that area, to preserve purity and obtain a different flavor profile.

There are two classifications that are important to remember: the Grand Cru and the Premier Cru. The Grand Cru is a bar that uses beans only from within a certain country, and the premier cru is one that utilizes beans from only a certain parcel or region within the country. The more localized the beans, the lower the quantity of the bar and the higher the quality, typically. Note that this contrasts with wines, where the Grand Cru is typically of a higher quality than the Premier Cru, since it utilizes the best grapes across a whole country rather than within a specific region.