Chocolatiers jump onto gourmet bandwagon

Gourmet chocolate also has been given a boost from mainstream retailers, including booksellers and even office supply stores, who now stock small, high-end Lindt and other chocolates at checkout counters. Ghiradelli chocolates are even sold at some airport kiosks these days.

The pervasiveness of very small pieces of high-end chocolate also has helped. Steuer notes that spending $3 on a tiny, rich piece of chocolate may seem easier on the wallet than picking up a bigger, $30 box.

Small chocolate companies are embracing the idea that chocolate isn’t just an afternoon snack or an ingredient in birthday cake — it’s an experience to be savored.

“Just like it happened with wines and cheese and bread, it’s happening with chocolate. ... Chocolate has become more of a gourmet food,” said Antonorsi, whose nearly 5-year-old company now has five stores and a wholesale business.

Many chocolate makers tout the country where the chocolate came from, using terms like "single-origin," and the difference they claim that can make to the flavor. Some even go so far as to include pamphlets describing the flavor profile of the chocolate, invoking language similar to wine connoisseurs.

On the back of Vosges Haut-Chocolat’s Black Pearl Bar — a dark chocolate bar flavored with wasabi, ginger and black sesame seeds — customers will find instructions on “How to enjoy an exotic candy bar.” After Step 1 — “breathe” — tasters are instructed to do things like rub their thumb along the bar “to help warm the chocolate and release the aromas.”

Such attention to taste is even helping spawn interest in chocolate tasting clubs. Steuer predicts that the next big trend will be pairing parties in which people discuss what wine, tea or even beer goes best with which chocolates.

The trend toward high-end chocolate isn’t expected to dissipate, in part because chocolate just tastes good.

“I don’t think it’s going to fade so fast because there’s just a sense that you can enjoy it, and if you enjoy it in moderation, you can enjoy it and not do yourself great harm,” said Mogelonsky, the Mintel analyst.

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