Valrhona Gran Couva 2009

Posted by Edmund in Chocolate, Featured Articles, Gourmet Chocolate Bars, USA | 0 comments

Composition: 64% Dark Chocolate.
Region of Production: France.
Origin of Cocoa: Gran Couva plantation in Trinidad.
Price: $5.25 for 75g on Chocosphere, though I’ve seen it for $7-8.

The beauty of this bar starts with the presentation. The wrapper is clean, sturdy, and classy, showing you a picture of the plantation from which the beans come. The bar is crafted into 10 perfect squares that snap off with a huge “chk,” almost always into perfectly cut, clean pieces, with no jagged edges. Moreover, the bar actually has nested shapes in each piece. There’s a large square that protrudes from the center, but there are two miniature triangles on the bottom of each piece. Moreover, the bar is very firm, never losing its shape, and so it has an interesting texture in the mouth, as you can feel every shape. The one downer was the bloom that had developed on my bar (the discoloration), as some areas had rubbed off. That’s mostly a storage/delivery issue, though, and this is easily one of the sleekest, best-crafted bars I’ve seen in a long time.

There’s a deliciously strong cocoa aroma that overtakes you as you open the bar. Just hold a piece up to your nose and you’ll be in for a treat of untamed wild cocoa, hazelnut, a bit of earth, and a bit of berries, though the cocoa is the overwhelming force.

The chocolate is actually rather hard, especially for something that’s only 64% and which uses soy lecithin. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it took me by surprise, as I literally had to munch into the chocolate to break it down. Still, I do enjoy the perfectly firm shape design, as you feel the protruding rectangles and mini-triangles in your mouth before all those edges melt away. Once it gets in the mouth, it has a fantastic, slow, even melt that leaves your mouth coated with a subtle, flavorful cocoa. It is, however, also a bar that I don’t mind munching down, because that crunch is fantastic. It’s really the way the melt and that crunch interact, both hitting you so that you have semi-hard smoothness, that makes this bar a treat. The bar is slightly waxy, though, leaving a buttery finish because of the lecithin, and it can cling to the teeth a bit much.

As for the taste, it can get a bit monotonous and waxy, but is overall delicious and extremely accessible for a dark chocolate. It starts off rather tame and smooth, but the palate gradually picks up some coffee, hazelnut, and, in general, earthy tones. It never gets too bitter or strong, almost to the point that it feels like a dark milk chocolate—and a delicious one at that. As you bite into it, even more tones burst onto the scene, including a very nice underlying sweetness, a slight roasted/toasty flavor, and finally a refreshing blast of sweet apples and cherries, though it’s short-lived. The best part of all, though? The simple balance. Never does any one flavor dominate. Instead, everything comes together smoothly and easily, making this one of the hands-down easiest dark chocolates to eat. It’s not the most flavorful, and the lecithin does seem to suppress the flavor, but the chocolate tastes great nonetheless.

The one area where this bar truly fails is in the length. For a dark chocolate, it fades very, very quickly, nor does it leave all that many overtones on the palate.

And the price? A mere $5.25 for 75g. Not only is this a single-origin bar made by one of the best producers of gourmet bars, but it undercuts nearly all of its competition in the single-origin market. Still, the use of lecithin is a bit of a sin.

Scores

Presentation: 4.0/5.0. 4.5/5.0 without the chocolate bloom.
Taste: 3.8/5.0. 3.0 if you’re looking for huge flavor.
Melt: 3.5/5.0.
Length: 2.0/5.0
Value: 4.2/5.0
Overall Score: 3.6/5.0. This is one of those chocolates I’d recommend to someone looking for a very mild, accessible dark chocolate. It doesn’t have the technical excellence to match other bars, however, even if it is very affordable for a single-origin chocolate.