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Chocolate & Terroir

By Jason Weaver

As a lover of fine wine, chances are you are also a lover of fine chocolate. In fact, the
two indulgences may be more closely related than you might think. Chocolate, like wine, has the ability to reflect "terroir" in the hands of a craftsman dedicated to preserving its regional and varietal characteristics.

There are three main varieties of cacao beans used to make chocolate: Criollo, Forastero, and Trinitario. Criollo, like Pinot Noir, is difficult to grow, delivers low yields, and is sensitive to environmental threats. Criollo’s flavor is delicate but complex, and it is known for its long finish, revealing a host of secondary flavors. Forastero is the workhorse in the world of chocolate production. An extremely hardy variety, its yields are high, but it lacks the finesse of its more elegant cousin. The third variety, Trinitario, is a hybrid of Criollo and Forastero, possessing the hardier characteristics of Forastero while maintaining some of the more complex flavors of Criollo.

At the winery, we recently tasted over a dozen single-origin chocolates from French chocolatier François Pralus. Each bar represented a single variety and a single locale in the chocolate-growing world. Regions included Central and South America, Madagascar, São Tomé and Principe, and Indonesia. All were made with approximately the same amount of cocoa (75%) and were carefully processed to bring out essential flavor characteristics.

In sampling each chocolate, we were amazed to taste how dramatically different one bar was from the next. Some were subtle, slowly revealing their flavors as the chocolate melted on our tongues, while others seemed to explode on the palate. One bar displayed pronounced herbal qualities, another tasted of lime peel, and yet another like roasted nuts and exotic fruits. Some of the chocolates had long and lingering finishes while others trailed off rather abruptly, leaving us wanting more. Listening to our comments and discussions, you might easily have come to the mistaken conclusion that it was wine we were talking about and not chocolate!

So the next time you decide to have a little chocolate with your Pinot Noir, you may want to consider the origin on both counts… a bit of São Tomé and Principe Forastero with your Ridgecrest? A smidgen of Indonesian Criollo with your Corral Creek? Check out specialty foods stores in your area for François Pralus and other single-origin chocolates.