Côte d’Or Experiences Noir Framboise

Finding this bar was something of a déja vu experience for me, as I had bought a dark chocolate and raspberry bar in Sweden this Spring and had been unable to find it in the UK. That was made by Marabou (manufacturers of Dime – or Daim) and I suspect that Marabou and Côte d’Or may actually be owned by the same company.

Anyway, enough about my international piggery – what about the choccy?

Suffice to say that having tasted this bar in Sweden all that time ago, I was rather pleased to find Cote d’Or Framboise on sale in Tesco of all places. I immediately snapped up two bars and went home like a kid with a new toy to present them to my wife, who is also partial to the occasional nibble of a chocolate bar.

So what does the packet blurb promise?

“NOIR FRAMBOISE, smooth 70% cocoa dark chocolate complimented with a thin layer of raspberries enveloped in chocolate.”

It then goes on to state that “By expertly sourcing cocoa beans from West Africa and Noble beans from South America Cote d’Or delivers an intense, full bodied chocolate with rich, indulgent flavours, seductive aromas and smooth, refined textures to provide a uniquely mysterious and exotic taste.”

Now, I’m the sort of person who wouldn’t normally think “Fruit and chocolate – yum!” Show me a Chocolate Orange or anything strawberry flavoured and I’ll almost certainly politely decline, but the fact that this bar uses real fruit and not oils or artificial flavourings made me think that it was definitely worth trying, and I was right.

Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it tasted mysterious and exotic, but it certainly is intense and full bodied. To my mind dark chocolate should be 70% cocoa or more in order for it to deliver that dark, bittersweet cocoa flavour, and this one does just that, but once the chocolate starts to melt you encounter the wafer-thin layer of candied raspberry which cuts through the chocolate, providing a unique hit of fruit flavour. The choice of raspberry was inspired. Possibly the only fruit that would sit so well with the dark chocolate – not too sweet, and definitely not overpowering. This bar is a shining example of a well thought out and well made product.

Well done the Belgians! A top buy.

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