May 21st: Zotter Muscat Wine with Grapes

Kcal ??? Fat ??? Fat(sats) ??? Carbs ???

Last week I told you all that Zotter had sent me a new box of samples, and I kicked off my latest round of reviews last Friday with my look at their Honey Trio hand-scooped bar. Buoyed by the unanimous success of that honey flavoured chocolate, this Muscat Wine with Grape variety was the next one I picked out of my box. Given that I am not the keenest wine drinker, I called in some reinforcements (aka my family) who were all as keen as ever to help me out. On the wrapper this bar came billed as 'mountain milk chocolate, filled with milk-cream and raisins'. The words that followed 'raisins' made me laugh - 'contains alcohol' ... indeed this bar was flavoured with Muskat Ottonell wine - it was going to be interesting.

Aligned to the rest of the hand-scooped range, this bar came in a 70.0g size that I split into three slices for each of us to try. I have said this in many a Zotter review previously, but I just have to reiterate my love for their packaging. The artistic designs on the wrappers always strike me as being the correct side of outlandish, in that they have a nice uniqueness, yet never seem to go overboard, and always strike me as looking very sophisticated. The bar itself was coated in the usual gold foil wrapper, which kept it conditioned very well. Aesthetically the chocolate looked quite similar to a number of other Zotter bars I have reviewed and eaten previously, however the boozy, cocoa scents that were on offer gave great indication of what the taste was going to have to offer.

Although I have reviewed a decent number of Zotter chocolates in the past, they have all tended to have been made with stronger tasting dark chocolates, so I was interested to see how well their milk chocolate would stack up in comparison. Amongst the three of us that tasted this chocolate, what we found most pleasurable was the way the flavours developed over the course of the melt. From the very first seconds in the mouth, it was straight away evident that Zotter's milk chocolate competency was just as high as their dark chocolate, as the milk, cream and sweet cocoa flavours were quickly forthcoming and started the taste off terrifically. Sitting below the crisp outer shell of milk chocolate, the milk-cream layer started off very buttery and vanilla noted, however it wasn't long before the promised wine and raisin elements came in to play. Contained within the milk-cream layer, strong notes of sweet fruit, and alcohol came through nicely in the middle stages of the smooth, soft melting filling. Unlike previous alcohol flavoured chocolates, the fluency of the taste was not disrupted by the alcoholic element, and the flavours were non-compromising with the wine nicely rounding of each bite delivering a pleasant warming sensation at the back of the throat amongst all the sweet grape fruit flavours.

Overall Zotter have surprised me yet again with another chocolate that I admitedly wasn't all that excited about trying. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, I am not a big drinker of wine, so the appeal of a wine flavoured chocolate wasn't as great as some of the other varieties that Zotter have to offer. You can probably tell then, that it was to my great surprise how much I liked this particular chocolate, and it has to go down as one of my favourite alcohol flavoured chocolates ever. I am also glad to confirm that it wasn't just myself who was of this way of thinking. The keener wine drinks amongst my family were similarly impressed at how well integrated the wine and raisin flavours were interwoven in to the creamy filling. One thing I am always very keen on with chocolate, is that they are progressive in their flavour delivery whilst they are melting the mouth. This Zotter Muscat Wine with Grapes did this in spades, and for this reason I would recommend it as an exciting and unique tasting chocolate. It is well worth a try if you get the chance to do so.

8.4 out of 10