Vosges Barcelona Bar

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

Vosges Barcelona Bar.
Hickory Smoked Almonds, Sea Salt, Deep Milk Chocolate (45%).
About $7-$8 for 3 oz./85g.

This is another Vosges bar, so I’ll skip the presentation section, which you can find in my previous reviews (Vosges Mo’s Bacon Bar Milk Chocolate Bar).

The Barcelona Bar is surprisingly soft for a 45% milk chocolate bar, especially considering that it has chunks of almonds integrated into it. It comes apart so easily (in a good way) that you know it’s going to be smooth in the mouth.

And the texture is indeed nice. It has the somewhat artificial melt of a chocolate produced with an artificial emulsifier (lecithin), but to its benefit the incredible creaminess of the bar mixes well with the slight grittiness of the salt and the hickory smoked almonds. Those almonds come in such small chunks that they don’t break the flow of the melt at all. I also like the chew on the bar, which has a very satisfying crunch from the almonds.

As for the flavor combination, I find it satisfying, but in an odd, semi-perverse way. Typically salt is only introduced into sweets in very small quantities for an added kick, but here it nearly takes over the whole bar by the end, leaving you with a satisfying thirst. It’s good that the salt gradually picks up, only hitting you intensely in the finish, as the saltiness of the chocolate doesn’t overshadow the chocolate and the nuts. The salt does, however, create somewhat of a vicious cycle—you end off the bar wanting to eat more to get the milk chocolate sweetness back when you know the bar is just going to leave you craving even more sugar.

The chocolate itself is great, too. Since it’s on the darker side, it has a bit more intensity to it than a normal milk chocolate, and I think that works well here. It’s milky enough to integrate the nut chunks smoothly, yet dark and intense enough to balance out the salty rush and stave it off until the finish so that you can savor the other flavors. The nutty, hickory flavor is very subtle, but I think it adds some needed neutrality to the bar. I would, however, have liked to see a bit more of the smoky flavor, which was delicious.

Now, for the cons. My one big complaint is simply that the finish is too salty, completely eradicating any trace of the chocolate on the mouth—a shame, because it was delicious chocolate. Salt doesn’t last on the tongue nearly as much as chocolate either, so this is a very short bar. Even more disappointing, the salt isn’t perfectly distributed, meaning that in some bites it will kick in much, much more intensely than in others. Consistency would have been nice. And, finally, I have to penalize Vosges again for the use of an emulsifier, especially for a bar at this price point.

Overall, though, the Vosges Barcelona Bar is excellent, easily becoming my favorite from the Vosges lineup. The bar really shows Vosges’ technical excellence in manipulating complex flavors, as it ranges the gamut from sweet to absolutely salty with no problems in transition whatsoever.

Presentation: 3.0/5.0
Taste: 4.5/5.0. I could see this being anywhere between 4.0-4.5, depending on your love of salt.
Flavor: 4.5/5.0
Melt: 3.4/5.0. Though it was a bit artificial, it was surprisingly smooth for having so much almond.
Length: 1.0/5.0
Value: 3.5/5.0
Overall Score: 4.1/5.0. I’m going to go with my gut on this one and recommend it even with its problems. It’s a milk chocolate, so don’t go expecting too much melt or length—just a fantastic taste.