Michel Cluizel - Noir de Cacao - 72%

Price: $11.60 for 100g

Comparative price: $11.60 per 100g

Origin: Blended

Rating: 4 out of 5

Buy again: Definitely, will become a regular

NB price quoted is Cocoa Kiss price, David Jones price $16.95

This product is a French product and considered by many to be a fine chocolate, so I am armed and eager… 

I purchased this from David Jones (prior to Cocoa Kiss stocking Michel Cluizel) for $16.95 for 100g, and was often frustrated at the limited and not very consistent range that DJ's offered. It is also available at a smattering of other retailers who at least tend to be a little more consistent.  So lets begin…

Sight

Looking at the chocolate it has an imprint of the brand and a signature of the chocolatier, which is quite nice as it gives it a sense of quality (putting ones signature to something) and evokes a little intimacy, that this is a personal chocolate experience.

The chocolate is a nice dark brown as you would expect from 72%, not overly glossy but it looks good.

Sound

Excellent snap. 

Aroma

Unlike many chocolates, this has a strong and complex aroma that compels me to eat it - it is an engaging aroma.  It resonates on the palette as not just something you are smelling but it is a more holistic experience linking smell with taste (and excitement and anticipation).

Taste & Texture

A strong aroma of noble refined flavours lingering long in the mouth and is expressed by this chocolate.

I’m wanting this to be gorgeous and smooth a’la Valrhona and the texture is quite nice – it melted well on my tongue but it doesn’t have quite the superiority of texture that Valrhona has.  It is very good texture, but maybe not great.

It has a mildly bitter flavour on the initial taste which is very pleasant but then it becomes more complex, and at the mid-point it tastes strongly fruity and from there the flavours just keep coming - this is a very giving chocolate.  Developing an almost light tobacco flavour it returns  to the bitterness only to be followed by the fruitness again.  This is truly a journey of taste. 

The chocolate lingers really well on the palette which concludes the experience nicely, from such a great aroma, to intense and complex flavours, to a long on the palette taste.  Even after a few minutes I had strong and intense flavours lingering in my mouth.  A lovely and rare thing in chocolate

To highlight the complexity of flavour, I also chewed the chocolate rather than melted on my tongue (yes, heretic some will cry) and it is amazing for what a different experience this brings – I would recommend trying both.  Chewing seems to intensify the flow of flavours and they really hit your palette strongly.  Great flavours and finishing on a lovely bitterness, but I should not this is a bittersweet taste – there is nothing overtly bitter for those who find such things loathsome. 

Summary

Overall it is nice, very nice and I like it.  It is complex, and there are not many chocolates I find complex although I would have to try beside Valrhona to know if I like it more than that.

This is made from a blend of beans which is worth noting as it has made me rethink my chocolate production preferences.  I had always assumed a single origin (particularly single origin estate) chocolate has to be better than a blend.  But I remember reading Peter Wilson, from Wilson Kennedy, once advocating blended beans as a skilled chocolatier will use the different characteristics to build up amazing flavours.  And I am pleasantly surprised that he may be right.  I am a huge fan of single origin estate chocolates, and am impatiently awaiting a mail order of Michel Cluizel single origin, but this is a great taste so I can no longer deny that blended beans are up there as well.

GM free which I also like.

Overall a very nice chocolate that I will definitely buy again and whilst the texture lets me down slightly the taste and evolution of flavours and its ability to linger is very good and I rate it as 4 out of 5.

Buy online at Cocoa Kiss now

22 August 2009
Reviewer: Shari